Bear Bile Farming and Welfare | Animal Welfare Hub

Bear bile farming confines thousands of bears in small cages to extract bile through painful surgical procedures, causing severe chronic suffering that synthetic and herbal alternatives make entirely unnecessary.

Key Facts

An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 bears are held on bile farms primarily in China, Vietnam and South Korea
Bile is extracted through permanent surgically implanted catheters or by crushing the gallbladder externally
Bears on farms develop severe physical and psychological pathologies including stereotypic behaviors and self-mutilation
Ursodeoxycholic acid — the active compound in bear bile — can be synthesized pharmaceutically at lower cost
Vietnam committed to ending bear bile farming and China has reduced farm numbers but not eliminated the practice

Welfare Considerations

Bear bile farming represents one of the most severe institutionalized animal welfare crises in the world. Bears confined in cages barely larger than their bodies for years develop extreme psychological deterioration — repetitive head-swaying, self-directed behaviors and the vacant gaze that welfare scientists associate with severe learned helplessness. The extraction process — whether through implanted catheters causing chronic infection or external compression causing acute pain — inflicts repeated trauma on animals already in a state of profound suffering. The particular cruelty of this industry is that it is entirely unnecessary: pharmaceutical UDCA is widely available, cheaper and of consistent purity. The campaign to end bear bile farming has succeeded in eliminating or dramatically reducing the practice in several countries and continues to make progress.

What You Can Do

Never purchase or use traditional medicine products containing bear bile
Support Animals Asia Foundation and other organizations working to rescue bears and close bile farms
Advocate for governments to enforce and accelerate phase-out commitments for bear bile farming
Choose traditional medicine practitioners who explicitly use only synthetic or herbal alternatives to bear bile