Bears face welfare harms from bile farming in Asia, human conflict, and habitat loss, with bear welfare advocacy intersecting conservation and anti-cruelty campaigns.
Bear bile farming is one of the most severe and well-documented forms of ongoing animal cruelty, causing chronic pain and psychological suffering in thousands of animals held in crush cages. The active compound in bear bile has synthetic equivalents, making the farming medically unnecessary. Rescue and rehabilitation programs demonstrate that bears can recover from bile farm trauma with appropriate care. Simultaneously, wild bear welfare is threatened by habitat loss and conflict with farming communities, requiring non-lethal coexistence solutions.