Bear Farming

These images are from a 2001 commission from Australia based NGO Free the Bears Fund to document the rise in small-scale bear farming in Vietnam. This led to a BBC Wildlife Magazine article (Feb 2003).

Bile, and almost every other part of the bear, has a long history of use in Traditional Asian Medicine. It is prescribed for chronic liver disease, sprains, bruises, gallstones and cancer.

Unlike legal bear farming in China which has become a major industry with hundreds of bears being kept on huge farms, Vietnam's growth in bear bile production - which is technically illegal - has been much more discreet but no less damaging in conservation and animal welfare terms. Bears - captured in local forests or in neighbouring countries and smuggled across the border - are spirited into the cities in the back of vans and kept in back yards 5 or 6 at a time. Doctors and Veterinarians ply a lucrative trade in bile extraction using high tech medical ultra-sound machines to locate the gall bladder.

Belief in the curative properties of bear bile are profound and any proposals to address this complex issue will have to consider the economic, social and cultural aspects of traditional medicine in Vietnam.