Inside a Bear Bile Farm

The bear bile farm is quiet when we arrive, which is the way its owner prefers it. Behind a high wall in a suburb of Hanoi, accessed through a metal gate that opens only after a series of phone calls, there are 23 Asiatic black bears—also called moon bears for the distinctive crescent marking on their chests—housed in small concrete cages, each one fitted with a crude metal catheter inserted into the gallbladder.

The catheter, a small metal or plastic tube, is implanted in the bear's abdomen and extends into the gallbladder, allowing bile to drain continuously into a jar below. The procedure is done without anesthesia, and once implanted, the catheters are rarely removed or cleaned, leading to infections that spread through the bile duct system. Bears on bile farms can live for 15-20 years if properly cared for, but the chronic infection, poor nutrition, and psychological stress of confinement typically shorten their lives considerably.

Bear bile has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 1,000 years, supposedly to treat everything from liver disease to hemorrhoids to hangovers. Modern science has found no medicinal benefit to bear bile that cannot be obtained from plant-based or synthetic alternatives. The active ingredient, ursodeoxycholic acid, can be produced synthetically for a fraction of the cost and without any animal cruelty. But traditional medicine consumers in China, Vietnam, and elsewhere continue to demand real bear bile, creating a market that sustains hundreds of bear bile farms across Asia.

Vietnam banned bear bile farming in 1992, but the ban has been poorly enforced, and the farm we visit operates under a government license that was grandfathered in before the ban and renewed annually. The owner, who asks to be identified only as Mr. Nguyen, insists that his bears are well cared for and that the bile extraction process causes no lasting harm. "They eat well," he says. "They are healthy. They live many years." He shows me the bears' food—rice porridge and fruit—and they do look healthy enough, for animals locked in spaces barely larger than their own bodies.

But the bears show other signs. They pace compulsively in their cages, the same route, over and over, until the floor beneath their paws is worn smooth and shiny. One bear, an older female, has a visible wound on her abdomen where the catheter has rubbed against skin. She rocks continuously, back and forth, a motion that animal behaviorists recognize as a stereotypic behavior, a symptom of severe psychological distress.

Bear bile farms exist in a legal grey zone in many countries. China has over 200 licensed bear bile farms with approximately 10,000 bears, despite a 2018 regulation promising to tighten welfare standards that has been implemented unevenly. In Vietnam, Asia's Bears, a wildlife rescue organization, has spent decades negotiating with bile farm owners to surrender their bears, paying them a compensation fee for each animal they surrender. It is expensive work—each bear can cost thousands of dollars—but it is the only way many bile farm owners will give up their animals.

"Every bear we take out of a cage is a small victory," says Dr. Nguyen Thi Van, a veterinarian with Asia's Bears who has personally rescued over 300 bile farm bears. "But the market is still there. The demand is still there. And as long as there is demand, there will be someone willing to supply it."

She pauses and looks at the bears through the fence. "These bears will never be normal," she says. "Their minds are broken from years of confinement. But we can give them a place where no one will ever put a needle in them again. That is something."

On the drive out, we pass a traditional medicine shop on the main road, its window display featuring a poster of a bear and the words, in Vietnamese and Mandarin: "Pure Bear Bile—Heals All Ailments." The shop is full of customers.