Bear bile farming — extracting bile from live, caged bears — is one of the most egregious examples of sustained animal cruelty for commercial purposes. It persists in China, Vietnam, and a small number of other countries.
Bear bile farming represents institutionalised cruelty of exceptional severity. Bears confined for years in crush cages — unable to move, in constant pain from implanted devices — experience a quality of life that welfare scientists consistently rate as among the worst documented in any farming context. The argument that bear bile has irreplaceable medical value has been systematically undermined by the development of synthetic UDCA and plant-based alternatives. The primary drivers of persistence are economic inertia, regulatory failure, and continued consumer demand for traditional medicine products containing bile. Each of these is addressable through targeted advocacy.