ALMOST two-thirds of bear gall bladders being sold in Chinese medicine shops, for prices of up to $18,000 a tael, may be fake, a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study has found.
The finding comes as the Agriculture and Fisheries Department prepares to announce today restrictions on the trade in the North American Black Bear and other species and their products.
Lack of control on the black bear has enabled the market in bear products, particularly gall bladders, to flourish. But the WWF found most bear products tested were fake and at least some came from pigs.
Bear bile, from the gall bladder, is used in about 80 Chinese prescriptions and is recognised as containing a chemical that can help relieve fever and inflammation - something pigs do not have.
The WWF investigators visited 92 Chinese medicine shops and 81 were selling what was claimed to be bear bile in crystallised salt form cut from dried gall bladders.
The prices ranged from $156 a tael to $18,000. Fakes were found at both ends of the price range.