I wish the news above was true but it is all propaganda from the Chinese gov’t. When I attended the symposium on Bear Part Trafficking in Japan in 2006 I heard the real stories right from Jill Robinson herself ( http://www.animalsasia.org ) and the Chinese official that was there would not answer hard questions when asked.

Please go into their website…they are amazing…people should only send money to this organization to help ban farms and not WSPA…it goes directly to the cause.

China has indeed closed small family run farms and cut off those people from a livelihood but they have allowed over 60 FACTORY FARMS to emerge and SAY they have better ways of extracting bile…..they leave the catheter in the bear all the time in new process and the wound is constantly open or made to open ….it gets infected constantly and sometimes mixes pus with bile…These poor bears are in factories just like chickens etc…. and infection is a constant threat …sound familiar?

So Chinese gov’t say that they have reduced numbers of bears in cages but actually the number is static or increasing but they will not report true numbers. Over 7,000 bears in cages for sure …probably more. They have some much bile they are using for shampoo….and other products they can make up…they use it to put babies to sleep…the market price in China has fallen dramatically but the pharmacies are also marketing to other countries like Vietnam etc…so they are now expanding into poaching and bear farms to be more like their big brothers in China….all a terrible trend …but when I asked Jill if there was any hope she said ‘yes’ and she will be there for as long as it takes…She is from Australia I believe and her assistant is from UK. Amazing women.

See Website for Jill’s fight!! http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=2&menupos=1&submenupos=1&item=1&lg=en&lg=en

She attended a conference in California in June and the organizer and I keep in close touch…the word is spreading.

Barbara Murray