Nearly a quarter of Britain's MPs have signed a petition to support a campaign by a Hong Kong-based animal welfare group to end bear farming on the mainland.
The early-day motion, or parliamentary petition, was introduced by Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews last week. It called on the British Government to encourage Beijing to take more active measures to end the practice
The motion cited the work of Hong Kong-based Animals Asia, which signed a pact with authorities in Beijing and Sichuan province in July 2000 that would see 500 bears rescued from the worst farms and co-operation to end bear farming.
The farms keep captured wild bears for years in cages little bigger than the size of their bodies for daily bile extraction for Chinese medicine.
There are an estimated 7,000 bears kept on 247 farms on the mainland, despite an official declaration committed to phasing out the farms.
The welfare group has been buying bears from the farms and is rehabilitating 65 of them at its mainland sanctuaries.
