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Shi Jiangtao

It's an indispensable ingredient in traditional medicine: wildlife official

China has rejected international calls for an end to the farming of bears for bile, saying it has no plans to order an end to the practice.

It also dismissed criticism that mainland consumption of shark's fin was endangering the species.

Wang Wei, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration's department of wildlife conservation, said bear farming was a market-driven activity in the country because bear bile was considered an indispensable ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.

'Until we can find a good substitute for bear bile, there is no timetable for the elimination of bear farming,' he said yesterday.

Bear bile is used in dozens of Chinese medicines for the treatment of various intestinal and cardiac illnesses.

Mr Wang said the  government would not accept a resolution by the European Parliament this week calling on China to phase out bear farms, a move some members said should happen before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

'It is undesirable for the international community to link  bear farming with other issues,' he said.

Mr Wang said a decade-long crackdown on illegal bear breeding had seen the number of farms  drop from 480 in the 1990s to 68, and  about 7,000 bears  were now raised.

Amid widespread criticism over the cruelty of the practice, Mr Wang said the mainland had made the process more humane by introducing painless practices for extracting bile through tubes made of the bears' own tissue. He said the government would set limits on the amount of bear bile to be extracted and on the number of bear farms.

Mr Wang accused some overseas organisations of distorting facts by circulating outdated videos and pictures showing bears being held in small iron cages, a practice banned on the mainland.

However, Jill Robinson,  from the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation, challenged Mr Wang's defence of bear farming.

'Many Chinese doctors we work with are in complete support of herbal and synthetic alternatives, which are cheaper and just as effective,' she said. 'They say the practice of bear farming  damages the reputation of Chinese medicine because it is such an inherently cruel practice and is not in keeping with harmony  of nature, as Chinese medicine dictates.'

She called on the  government to recognise what she alleged was 'the great deceit in the unnecessary industry' of bear farming and set a date to end the practice.

Mainland authorities also dismissed criticism that the excessive consumption of shark's fin had endangered sharks.

Li Yanliang, from the Ministry of Agriculture's fisheries bureau, said the allegations  were unfounded.

'China's fishing of sharks is  based on  international conventions, and it  has  boosted the economies of developing countries in coastal Asia,' he said.



Plea for end to bear bile farming falls on deaf ears