Bear Witness REVISITED

Through soulful eyes we see ourselves These creatures sad and splendid For though they be confined to bars Flesh bodies crushed, tormented Their spirits burn with freedom's fight Mad, somewhat demented... Like the rusting strands of metal twine That hold their fate suspended Cruelty is an irony A stage for man To play his hand In wickedness or wonder

- Cortlan Bennett

In the former Liangzhou nursery, where pandas were once presented as gifts to foreign heads of state, British-born Jill Robinson and her team are leading one of the biggest captive rescues since The Great Escape. Over the next 18 months, 500 endangered Asiatic black bears – affectionately known as “moon bears” for their golden crescent chests – will pass through this converted rescue and rehabilitation centre, en route to a sanctuary in China’s southern Sichuan Province. Some will die before they reach it.

Their road to freedom has been a tortuously long one. Most of these bears have been caged since they were cubs for up to 23 years. But it wasn’t until 1993 that an almost single-handed investigation by Hong Kong-based Robinson, then China director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), revealed their plight by exposing the brutal practice of bear farming on the mainland.

While bear bile has been used as a traditional oriental medicine for more than 3,000 years, farming it by surgically implanting metal tubes into the bears’ gall bladders and draining them twice a day, was only introduced to China from North Korea 20 years ago [in the early 1980s].

Although Asiatic black bears are protected under Appendix I – the most critical category – of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), to which China is a signatory, they are the species most threatened by the bile trade. Black bear bile contains high concentrations of ursodeoxycholic acid, or UDCA, which has modern medicinal properties.

Since the 1950s, China has established more than 1,000 natural reserves, of which 200 provide habitat to its four native bear species: the Asiatic black, brown, sun and giant panda. Yet over the last 50 years, bear numbers have continued to decline as they are hunted for their gall bladders and other parts.