Mother bear kills cub and then itself (suicide at Chinese "bile farm")

Source: Asia One

Mother bear kills cub and then itself

The Chinese media has reported on an extraordinary account of a mother bear saving her cub from a life of torture by strangling it and then killing itself.

The bears were kept in a farm located in a remote area in the North-West of China. The bears on the farm had their gall bladders milked daily for 'bear bile,' which is used as a remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

It was reported that the bears are kept in tiny cages known as 'crush cages', as the bears have no room to manoeuvre and are literally crushed. The bile is harvested by making a permanent hole or fistula in the bears' abdomen and gall bladder.

As the hole is never closed, the animals are suspect to various infections and diseases including tumours, cancers and death from peritonitis. The bears are fitted with an iron vest, as they often try to kill themselves by hitting their stomach as they are unable to bear the pain.that they were inhumane.

<snip>

Read more: http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20110805-292947.html

I thought we were in the 21st century :cry:

making doing this comes back and slams them into the tenth dimension.

was that the "remedy" wasn't used for erectile purposes.

That's a serious question, which seems to me to revolve around a level of self-awareness that I frankly did not think that bears had.

If a bear can see into the future that far, conclude that it and its offspring has no chance, and then correctly determine how to kill itself, when all of its instincts are against it, then I think I would have to argue that that's a level of self-awareness comparable to humans.

I would be much more willing to consider personification, the human quality of ascribing human motives to non-human things, as the real explanation.

"The witness also claimed that a mother bear broke out its cage when it heard its cub howl in fear before a worker punctured its stomach to milk the bile.

"The workers ran away in fear when they saw the mother bear rushing to its cub's side.

"Unable to free the cub from its restraints, the mother hugged the cub and eventually strangled it.

"It then dropped the cub and ran head-first into a wall, killing itself.

"Many TCM practitioners have denounced the use of bear bile in their treatment as there are cheaper herbs and synthetics that can be used in its place."

I'll just toss it out there that the mother bear may have been trying to bust through the wall to escape, and accidentally killed herself in the process. She may also have been trying to extricate her offspring in a way similar to that which she used to escape herself, and accidentally killed it in the process.

Attempting to escape captivity and protection of ones young are two traits that are widely observed and noted across a wide array of humans and other critters, while murder-suicide seems to me to be more... "human," unfortunately.

But I'm not going to claim that I know for sure. Curmudgeoness makes an astute observation of her own in the post below which warrants careful consideration.

Edit: "warrants," not... "bears."

Would you care to offer one?

sorry

It's a trait of an animal that has a natural history of frequently overrunning its resources: human beings.

This does sound like it was likely accidental, brought on by desperation, though.

been known to kill themselves in captivity.
A whale whose mother had died kept trying to beach itself in the shallow bay down the street from me. It was a mature male.
Grief stricken animals are known to starve themselves.

No, only human beings appear to do it with regularity. The fact that we note it with animals and note the species where it happens testifies to how rare it is. We act like previous generations wouldn't have even noticed animal suicide.

Starving oneself to death, it could be because the animal feels heavy nausea when depressed. That's different from a conscious decision to die.

Cetaceans beaching themselves is well-known. Apparently some of it is suicide. How much isn't clear.

Generally, though, if a bear rams itself into the wall, is it even likely that she could have any inkling of how dense the wall was? How would she know it would kill her? Moreover, if she was in physical agony, could she be hallucinating? Maybe the wall grew an exit for her? This would be especially true if she accidentally killed her cub trying to rescue it. It would be no more a deliberate suicide than a bird flying into a windowpane.
It doesn't matter. This was inhumane, criminal and unfortunate either way.

Elephant rampages are more interesting, in my opinion. Because when they happen, and involve more than one elephant, it always looks premeditated and coordinated.

are an attempt to end the pain not necessarily ones life.

Most of us are endowed with the instinct to survive. High stress though can compromise that instinct. An animal that quits eating in reaction to stress is no longer utilizing survival skills.

Most animals are not under the severe stress that the bears are, or the dolphins held captive for shows. Most have adapted to their environment - until humans mess with them.

I'm not a dolphin, but I'm thinking no way can beaching yourself be considered pain reduction either. IMHO, you really have to be desperate to die to do it because it would probably feel like crucifixion.

Or perhaps they had a bizarre accident because they didn't understand their artificial environment?

I don't think there's any real "compromising of instinct" with suicide. It's an instinct itself. I think this: if on any level of consciousness, a person perceives that they are unfit and that their continued support drains resources from their friends and family, then suicide is a danger.

Now, that might be expresses as something different in the conscious narrative, but that's how I think suicide actually functions from a Darwinistic standpoint. It's more common in human beings but it's not a trait totally absent in other animals.

It's insulting to the animals to definitively answer the question for them. Unless the evidence for suicide is totally conclusive you can't know, and imposing a narrative that plays up the pity and makes them sound human is condescending, and a poor argument for demanding better treatment, because people will doubt your take on it.

Don't jump to conclusions that it's suicide just to underscore the inhumane, barbaric treatment of the animals. The treatment is just as inhumane and barbaric whether the animals committed suicide or had an accident. If you describe those bile farms, any person would become nauseated.

is the conclusion you jumped to so we are both interpreting. As I said - they are trying to stop the pain. The damage that occurs from that attempt may result in death. (Dolphins ram their heads into the side of their pools. Whales beach themselves repeatedly)

Your explanation of a rational suicide may be what happens sometimes.
Have you ever seen a a child with severe neurological problems bang their head against a wall? Some of those kids die as a result. I promise you they are suffering mental pain they are trying to stop.

. . . minus the the need to identify with the animal? How would the bear know how dense cement is? Or brick? Or whatever enclosed it? Moreover, does it comprehend that a hard knock to its own head could even kill it? I didn't know that until I was six years old. Explain this to me, and I'll agree it was suicide.

I've seen child headbanging and it looks more like aggression. They're trying to hurt or kill or silence something in their skull. That something is so nettlesome they don't notice the pain, or more likely, associate the pain to the thing in their skull and then try to kill it even more. For people in that condition, they're not competent enough to make a conscious decision to commit suicide. They're dying of sickness.

Birds also ram their heads into windowpanes. In fact, I saw one do it repeatedly for fifteen minutes. (The company did call the humane society.) Like suicide, right? But then after five minutes, straight of bashing its head, it would stop, walk up to the window, and look up and down at it. After doing that for a minute, it started trying to fly through it again. No, it wasn't suicidal. It was damned determined to fly through that window. If it were suicidal, it would just fly 500 feet into the air and stop flapping its wings.

What if it was the same with the dolphin? What if they fantasize that they could swim through the side? It's just as sad as suicide. What if it was like the bird that can't grasp or won't tolerate the concept to a windowpane? What if a dolphin feels that way about enclosures? Or it couldn't even grasp the concept of an enclosure? That would be an utterly alien to a wild dolphin. There's a way to test this: if captured dolphins are the only ones to do it, than it's likely accidental. If domestic dolphins do it with some frequency, then it's usually suicide.

No, I don't second guess it. Looking at it clinically detached, this is what the evidence says about all cases: accident likely, suicide unlikely but possible. Call that a conclusion I'm jumping too?

I will say, whales beaching themselves repeatedly is most likely suicide. But not because they're trying to escape pain.

I am of the belief that man may be the least aware animal on the planet

No other animal destroys its habitat

Starting with the yeast at the bottom of your (unfiltered) beer bottle. Humans are no different than any other species that finds a nice habitat and then breed until it won't support them any longer. But with enough predator/prey interactions, they keep each other in check, with a growing surplus in one species giving way to a growing number in the next step up the food chain. The only problem with humans is that there are not enough predators eating them any more.

Perhaps, what I consider a fatal flaw in our species is just a limited awareness.

Both the will to survive and the will to protect one's offspring are among the strongest and most inescapable consequences of evolution. That's obvious when you consider how natural selection and the "survival of the fittest" mechanism works.

This is a real horror story, and the idea that a bear would commit a mercy killing of its own cub followed by suicide makes it sound even worse, but this sounds more like projection. I doubt that such actions are actually possible for bears.

than humans. animals often jump in to care for those creatures that need care. including humans.

:cry:

maybe human qualities are not just for humans. Maybe we think too highly of ourselves as the only animals on earth with "human motives". We used to have this same opinion of elephants and whales and apes, but enough study and observation has shown that they are much deeper than we thought. It is not just humans who have what we consider human qualities.

n/t

:hi:

I'm willing to give the bear the benefit of the doubt. I have seen animals (mother dogs) grieve at the loss of a child (a young pup), and there's no doubt in my mind that was real. I don't think we give animals, at least mammals, enough credit. I respect your question, but I'm giving this one to the bear.

intelligent, according to bear biologists. http://www.all-creatures.org/bear/b-bearintel.html

:shrug:

When I was a child I witnessed a caged mother rabbit kill her babies so they wouldn't be butchered and skinned, like the last litter was.

Bad, bad karma is going to get those who torture those bears, those who defend the practice, and those who profit from and use bear bile products.

Your description of your experience is actually a fine example of personification.

You are not a rabbit, you are not a rabbit psychic, and you don't know what that rabbit was thinking, if anything, when it did what it did.

You have naturally assigned to to the rabbit motivations and thought processes which you yourself can understand, something all of us do all the time in all sorts of situations. It's one of the things we do, as animals.

But the rabbit almost certainly did not have those same motivations and thoughts. That is unfortunately about the only thing you can know for sure about that tragic incident.

A brief trot around Google suggests that female rabbits may kill their young when they aren't fed regularly, because they can't nurse a whole litter without enough food. First-time mothers (not applicable in your case) may kill them because they don't recognize their young, which further suggests that their small brains aren't all that good at reasoning (which is very applicable to your rabbit). They may kill one litter when they've been knocked up again (they can be impregnated again on the very day they give birth). And so on.

So there are many potential explanations for what happened other than the one you have offered.

I'm not criticizing you or your emotional reaction to what happened. In fact, I agree entirely with your last sentence. But personification gets in the way of better understanding the wonderful world around us.

Infanticide is common in rabbits. They eat their children if they are hungry, threatened, or spooked, or just need more protein, or one is a runt, or whatever.

If you can peacefully kill, and skin, a rabbit, in front of their mother, the mother doesn't really care, as they eat their own children all the time. It's what they do.

Rabbits are not humans.

FYI

You're really gonna facepalm me for suggesting that bears might not be capable of murdering their young and committing suicide?

Are you working for Stephen Colbert?

Why?

Ya got that right. Suicide and mercy killing (the cub) are pretty up there in the cognitive scheme of things. I find it highly unlikely that an animal is going the commit suicide in the human sense of the word.

It seems very easy for humans to think that only they are self aware. I think anyone who has had a pet knows that is not the case.

This is kind of like thinking the earth is the center of the universe.

I also hope the "people" responsible for this rot in hell. More than once I've thought the planet would be much better off with no humans on it.

not surprised. :eyes:

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Are *you* Colbert?

I'm arguing that a bear is self aware enough not to intentionally kill its offspring when she has the chance to help it escape its cage, as she just did.

I'm arguing that a bear might not be aware of its own mortality, not the way we are, and therefore might not even be aware of suicide as an option.

I can make that second argument because bears do not send all their money to televangelists in the hopes of living forever. That suggests that they don't have to deal with the paradox that we do, being able to predict the future well enough to know we are going to die, which apparently drives our self-preservation instincts crazy and makes Republicans a viable voting option.

Yes, I am being silly now.

Is a plant which "goes to seed" committing "suicide"?

Likewise, "mortality" is another weird, human, concept.... as is "death".

Ask a plant what they think of such loaded concepts. Ask another non-homo-sapiens mammal.

They don't care about it in the way humans do.

The larger mammals *do* get upset, and often try to "push" their relatives when one dies (literally), but they don't make monuments, web-pages, newspaper publications, grave site markers, and have all their bloodline meet to have a ceremony to socially communicate that "fred stopped moving, so we must talk about it, and feel bad".

that being silly makes so much sense.

What is your personal agenda that you are working so hard on this thread to "prove"
that animals could not possibly know that they are suffering?

Perhaps you would identify with the nineteenth century medical school professors that
would dissect live dogs in class insuring their students that even with cries of agony
that the dogs felt no pain because after all they were dogs.

You might want to spend some time with contemporary research into animal consciousness
before you argue so vehemently for anthropomorphism

Most mammals know how to dull pain.

Sure, humans have made it into an art form, but elephants eat fermented fruit and get drunk, many mammals know how to bash their heads to shake off their mental state, how to fuck the pain away, etc.

The flaw is twofold: The anthropomorphism of one concept, "kill", and two, "itself".

kill: Humans overdose on "pain-killing" all the time, with heroin, with alcohol, with sexual asphyxiation, etc.

itself: The idea that the individual breeder is important exists in some species, but for most mammals, the self *is* the group, not the individual.

There are many ethologists who believe that animals are very "self aware". Donald Griffin being the leader of that movement. I grew up on a real cattle ranch and have been around livestock and other animals every day for many many years. I tend agree with Mr. Griffin. These guys are very self aware. I do not think that anthropomorphism is the correct answer.

and it doesn't necessarily take self-awareness. Cells commit suicide all the time, and they don't do it with intent, per se. So it would not surprise me to see a similar mechanism working at the organismal level. We, as humans, just anthropomorphize everything.

Mammalian mothers do not with any biological frequency kill their children. Do they?

Does that make you feel better? You clearly give yourself away by describing animals as things.
Anyone who is close to animals definitely knows they are far more than inanimate objects.

More and more science is showing us that many of the qualities we ascribed to
humans actually exist in other species. They, especially, the mammals, do share
many of the aspects of self-awareness that we have. They actually do have personal
inner lives. Imagine that and imagine knowing that your life is only to be of pain and
unendurable suffering, What then would you do?

Scientists have caused so much stress in octopi that they chewed off it's own limbs, thereby killing itself.

While octopi are probably the smartest invertebrates around, not sure they come up to human awareness. But they can kill themselves just the same under the right circumstance.

So why not a bear?

Shit like this makes my agnostic ass almost HOPE there's a vengeful God waiting to fry "human"kind.

of animals or vegetables. Megafarming only gives something to eat, but at such a huge price.

Animals and fish either have to die for you to eat, or they don't. Period.

"Cruelty Free" is nothing more than marketing. It is meaningless.

It's not natural to torture those same animals for their whole natural born lifes before they become meat, though. Keep it kosher.

humanely. It is possible to treat animals, and vegetables, humanely before you kill and eat them. Kosher is one way, another is to find local source that you know how they were treated. Both may be difficult and sometimes more expensive, though I have found a local source for beef, ends up $2.50/lb for 1/4-1/2 a cow.

I know that it would be difficult for many to find meat like this, but for those who can, do what you can. Another idea is eating less, using meat as a condiment vs the main dish. Then you can buy the kosher since overall cost would be the same.

that you can treat what you eat with respect and compassion.

I agree that "cruelty free" can be nothing more than marketing.

for your oral gratification. That is my thinking because I am a vegetarian.

Most "vegans" I know slaughter huge amounts of living creatures, as do the vegetarians, and omnivores I know.

Is yeast meat?

Is bread meat?

Is yogurt meat?

None of those things are meat, not according to any dictionary in the world.

Are you seriously saying that cutting a loaf of bread is the same as slitting the throat of a cow that is suspended by its broken legs in a slaughterhouse?

Does yeast have a central nervous system capable of feeling pain? Eyes? Ears?

Ask Boppers about marijuana overdoses.

"Does yeast have a central nervous system capable of feeling pain? Eyes? Ears?"

Are jellyfish "meat"? How about sea sponges? Starfishes? They all lack a CNS, eyes, and ears.

People who love meat want to eat the flesh of an animal.

Tiny animals, but animals nonetheless.... (depending on how one defines "animal").

Do you define it based on things that breathe air (the word root)?
Things that have multiple cells?
Things that "eat"?

Yeast is a fungus.

Eating yogurt means that the organisms that I eat will have a very nice life in my gut.
Eating meat means some animal may have suffered a horrible life and a gruesome death.
How are these the same?

that you'll feel better, lose weight, and lessen your chances of disease. And feel good that nothing has to suffer so you can eat.

I've been mostly vegetarian for 20 years. I still eat fish if I can afford it, and once in a great while eat chicken (about twice a month, if that).

I also don't wear leather, and avoid any and all products which contain animal products. I have, in the past, also stopped taking medications which have conducted animal experiments.

I'm not perfect, but I've also worked in one way or another on animal rescue, donate when I can to animal causes, and have taken care of, and raised many cats through the years. The record of the whole human race is appalling when viewed in the light of the other animals on planet earth. I agree with whoever said this planet would be better off without human beings.

hear.

horrible.

:cry:

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

This is one of the most horrible disturbing articles I've ever read!
I wish I hadn't! I'll never forget that picture of that poor bear stuffed in that cage with no room for it's nose, feet or legs. It's so sickening! I hate those people who have no regard or empathy for an animals pain...they need to rot in hell.

cruel. I join you in your tears. :(

sharks which have been here for 400 million years. Add whaling and dolphin slaughter to the list and there is a cultural problem in the way animals are viewed by Asians.

I am sickened and disgusted by the pain these animals endure. The sharks have their fins cut off while still alive and thrown back into the ocean unable to swim.

As I reread this post it sure sounds racist to me, yet the facts are facts. Asians are killing sharks for their fins, no other culture values shark fin soup and no other culture collects bear bile.
How do you educate people to go against traditions that have been in place for thousands of years?

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Responsible practitioners of Chinese medicine (I'm not one but I know a few) are aware of, and use instead, cruelty-free alternatives to animal-derived ingredients. I also think it's kind of disrespectful to refer to "the DU alternative medicine brigade" as if people who use and defend alternative medicine are stupid and selfish enough to defend the practice in the OP.

I'm sorry to get snippy but I'm just as offended by the cruelty to these animals as you are.

Shark fin soup is Chinese.
Whaling and dolphin slaughter are Japanese.

There's a difference, and they're not the only cultures in Asia.

As far as inflicting suffering, we're no better than either. Lobsters are boiled alive, crabs are alive when their legs are cut off, cattle are tortured before they're killed, etc.

lobsters and shark extinction are the same. I also do not agree that whaling and killing dolphins so that they do not eat the fish that the fishermen are competing for is the same as farm raised animals.
I do know that there has been cruelty however, cows, chickens and pigs are not on the brink of extinction. They are not wild animals that are being hunted, they are domesticated farm raised animals
and the US does have regulations and inspectors.

Hunting an animal to extinction for 1 body part is insane. I did not even bring up Tigers. I also make distinctions between crustaceans and mammals. No sure there is the same pain factor in crabs and lobsters and a self aware animal as proven by the act of the bear.

The US has to take some action against this. Of course we are so dependent upon them but we need to boycott something. What?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to prop up a disgusting, disgraceful factory farm industry.

The area where I live is developing better alternatives. A family that has a grocery store raises much of the produce they sell also raises their own beef without the hormones etc. They don't have the horrible lives like the factory farms.
My neighbor was always a cattle rancher - small herd that lives on huge fields in a gorgeous area. The sons have taken over the business and have changed to grass-fed, organic beef.

I hope more communities try to do this.

Because that's the moral high road. Right, Colonel Klink?

:crazy:

of alternative medicine. So much of what I learned about alternative medicine years ago is now mainstream.

This is not about alternative medicine, it is about cruelty. In fact another poster reminded me of the factory farms in the US that are so cruel - the meat you see in most grocery stores comes from there.
I cannot think of anyone I know who is interested in alternative medicine that would condone this horrible treatment of animals.

As an Alternative Medicine supporter, I don't condone this horrendous activity.

And I don't condone the treatment of lab animals by pharmaceutical researchers either.

condone this horrible treatment of animals.

many practictioners were using alternatives to the bile if I am remembering correctly.

Alternative medicine like use of herbs, poultices, physical manipulation, heat or cold, acupressure/acupuncture, chiropractic, etc. is actually based in scientific research and can not only have healing effects but may even work better than traditional pharmaceutical and "physician only" healing methods.

Alternative medicine that has no actual scientific reason for use and is based purely on "hoccus-poccus" belief like crystals, bear bile, tiger "wine", camel milk, eye of newt, three feathers from a female white heron on the doorstep, etc. is what people take issue with - and rightly so - because there is no actual medical benefit to purely belief based remedies.

We are cruel to each other, but we must stop this kind of cruelty whereever we find it. What kind of species are we, to cause this much pain to another?

There is evil among us. This is heartbreaking, as is Somalia.

I believe that all of the American companies that have moved their jobs to China should be aware of this.
I will start my letters some of them ASAP and I will try as much as I can to not purchase items made in China.

Keep me posted.

Sometimes I wish I had supernatural powers.

Remember, however, that equally horrible things are done in this country in the name of "scientific research." That should be protested, too.

n/t

but I cannot equate this bile practice to that. This is hocus pocus. Scientific research, some may not be as it should be, but the aim is to help, for the most part, sick people. In Asian countries, some people use this hocus pocus stuff to try to enhance their virility or because they think it will help them live longer or things like that. It isn't to cure cancer or MS or something like that. I do not think we need to always equate things. It IS worse in China. We are not the same.

Far too many animals suffer not for the advancement of scientific knowledge and medical
research but for grant money. Far too many animal studies are unnecessarily repeated
for the benefit of the researchers and the corporations that supply the animal "models."
rather than for you.

Those in China would argue as you have that the suffering is justified. It almost never
is. There or here.

Thank you, Jackie Chan....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBpV1G68-vw&feature=player_embedded#at=13

This is also not confined to China, this occurs in other countries, but the Chinese have no respect for nature, for protecting the environment, and they believe in this voodoo crap. They and the repubs have a lot in common. China may not go around starting wars but I do not think they will do anything to try to make this a better world.

I hope that the people who use this bile get sick and die. This makes me so angry. There is no respect for life, not human life, and certainly not the lives of animals.

Not for the faint of heart.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/golden-retriever-skinned-_n_824509.html

My vet said that he saw it fairy often, especially with cats and parrots-though dogs, horses and other animals would do it as well. Animals would starve themselves to death over the loss of a family member, another pet or even a move to a new home. Others would purposely eat large quantities of toxins or non food items to kill themselves..and yes, they even make Prozac for pets to keep them from doing these things. Now if a cat will kill itself by eating vast quantities of dryer lint because it's family re-homed it to a place it didn't like, then one can only imagine what an animal on a bile farm would be willing to do (and let's not even get into their purposeful starvation of tigers to make "tiger wine") :puke:

eating when I did. He didn't sleep ... for months he followed every step I made and just watched me, when he should have been sleeping I'd look at him and his eyes were open, and always sad. Even now almost a year later he still doesn't eat well and I have to tell him to. I hope he soon gets back to the lively guy he was, even though he's an older rescue-dog, he acted and played like a pup.

Those bear farms - just so horrific. I can't even begin to imagine how that mother bear felt not being able to save her cub. What cruel, sick, ignorant people.

But is it wrong?

That's an underlying "third-rail" I haven't seen addressed in this thread.

Humans self-terminate, as do many other animals, so, what's the problem with that?

come to the 'decision / intuitive reaction, whatever ............. to self-terminate. How horrible and painful does life have to be for the act to come about ....... that's what breaks my heart.

The "how painful" question is tough. From two people who were in my life, I offer two extremes:

Olga: Liver cancer, immobile, incontinent, stored up her pain meds... to make it stop by taking them all at once.
Mike: Heavily medicated, didn't feel pain. Didn't feel anything. Didn't care anymore. Bullet to the brain.

The "magic zone" seems to be having just enough pain to keep a person moving forward, but not so much pain as to stop moving.

about your friends and family. In a way, we humans are lucky ... we can decide to end our suffering in ways that are relatively quick and, we hope, painless. When I try to imagine how much longer these bears must suffer long beyond that magic zone you speak of before doing something they may or may not know will kill them, there really just aren't the words.

due to suffering. When the self-termination is the result of unbearable pain, then we have failed regardless
of the species, human or animal whether that pain is the result of emotional or physical trauma.

Your response comes across as cold and uncaring. I hope that was not your intention.

For the rest of my life I will be trying to find some way to help these poor souls.

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:





Oh, and as for those who 1) perpetrate, 2) profit from and/or 3) use the finished products of these unspeakable atrocities:

Words don't exist that adequately express my utter loathing for you. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I hope you rot in a hell custom-made with body cages and gallbladder punctures twice a day.

I will research other groups and post them here.

http://ursafreedomproject.ning.com/ - lots of links to other pages here

http://endbearbilefarming.blogspot.com/ - a wonderful blog with lots of photos


http://ursafreedomproject.ning.com/opensocial/ningapps/show?appUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fos.ning.com%2Fningapps%2Fpaypal%2Fgadget.xml%3Fning-app-status%3Dnetwork&owner=7dhthus9h99f - DONATE

I for one will never buy anything Chinese again, at least not knowingly. I've had it with their inhumanity to animals and humans.

what we do in America every day to farm animals is equal in barbarism and cruelty. Watch any undercover video of a slaughterhouse.

If this offends you and you eat meat, you should ask yourself why a bear is entitled to a good life more than a chicken, turkey, or cow.

More American exceptionalism.

American companies that have moved their manufacturing to China that we don't want to support such practices perpetrated against the animals and the horrible working conditions for the workers.
I don't think we can close our eyes to the cruelty.

Do you have an answer for post number 84? I'm curious to what your answer is.

>>so you want to tell a private company where is can place its business?
Fuck yes.

If the only value we have is the almighty buck, then FUCK the way business is run.

We simply HAVE to find another way to value things that dont allow it just because of $$. Otherwise we have succeeded in creating the perfect definition of hell.

I already posted something concerning the subject of post 84. I live in an area where humanely treated cattle are raised.
We have a grocery store that is owned by a family that raises much of their own produce and has a small cattle farm. The cattle are treated humanely and not treated with hormones and antibiotics etc.
My neighbor was second generation cattle rancher. The cattle live on acres and acres of lush green grass land. When he retired and his son and his wife took over, they have made sure the cattle are grass fed and organic.
I support those two businesses and not the products that come from those horrible slaughter houses.

you don't have to be American to see that milking bile from animals this way is wrong.

Tell them to change or else.

If we were talking about people being abused, I bet you'd think it was OK to advocate for change.

Nothing in the OP.

We don't have bile farms in America. We don't torture or starve to death endangered species for profit here. Those who do get locked up for a very long time.

A few years ago I read in passing about "bile bears" and had no idea what it was. I went looking and came away changed for the worse. The most powerful writing that I found on the subject was a letter written by a Chinese citizen who was fighting the practice. He described in detail the plight of a number of the bears that he saw. It left very clear mental images that I can recall in crystal clarity years later.

The profound evil that humans are capable of is beyond me now. It has no limits. History shows us this in many periods, but the modern way of mechanizing this kind of bestiality and horror seems much worse to me. I truly had believed that this kind of thing would not happen in the world I was raised in. I was very naive.

Animals feel and they have feelings. Their consciousness is part of the earth and a part of us. When we degrade animals we hurt ourselves. Humans have no right to do this to anyone or anything, let alone those who have no guile, no ability to even conceive of the level of possible human brutality. And this isn't even for food!(where it would still be unacceptable).

Supposedly this kind of practice was encouraged to protect wild bears. Indeed.

I believe that a human who claims that a bear could not take its own life is an arrogant human. To put intelligence and feeling in strictly human terms, to view as lesser any creature that has has its own kind of intelligence and its own way of feeling is, in my opinion, wrong. It was only a short time ago that newborn babies were finally thought to feel any pain by the medical establishment, this has shown up largely in regards to circumcision. The hubris of people, especially "experts" is terrifying.

If animals had no empathy, there would not be case after case of animals that have adopted or protected or even saved other species of animal.

The non-human creatures of the earth make humans look very bad indeed. We are "smart" in a way that is rapidly leading to the demise of a great portion of life on the planet, including most humans. And that's if we don't destroy it all first and more directly with some kind weapon.

It makes me so sad.

Unless you think we should tell people around the world what to do.

I believe you're conflating the phrase "let them deal with it" with concern illustrated by many animal lovers. The two are mutually exclusive in that the one is not predicated on the other.

Unless of course you believe we should only illustrate concern with what happens on "our" side of the imaginary borders drawn on maps... :shrug:

cruelty anywhere in the world. And this is beyond cruel.

Your isolationist views are so extreme I'll bet that you're against the outlawing of child sex slavery as well (which happens in many countries). Do you have ANY ethics at all?

And suffering exceed any artificial constructs of nationalism. Suffering of humans and suffering of animals.
Your rationalization does not hold water.

I don't believe the mother bear was acting with the intentionality that's being read into it, but I do believe she responded to her cub's cries and that her pain and anxiety led to her accidentally killing the cub while trying to save it. Bears are smart, but don't think in complex terms. They can solve puzzles very well and do experience pleasure, pain, affection (not exactly as we do but affection), recognition, rage, anxiety, etc. And like many animals and somewhat like humans they can do things that are harmful out of uncontrollable anxiety. It's the "eating your young" principle, where the instinct-driven anxiety gets so intense and short-circuited with the aggression instinct that the lines between what they are trying to help and what they are trying to save it from blur.

As to running into the wall, who knows...pain and panic.

This is a horror, what they are doing to these animals. I am extremely fond of bears and have known them to never mentally recover from far less serious abuses. It's heartbreaking.

I don't believe the anthropomorphism, but frankly if it horrifies people enough to lessen this practice, I'm down with that.

on sentient, innocent beings?

Whatever type of person that is, I wish they'd become extinct.

:cry:

and it's all hideous. We're not exempt, ever hear how Premarin is produced?

It just seems especially hideous in China because we expect them to be civilized.

many farms using the old methods, which are inhumane and ones I've fought to stop ..... but in NO WAY as cruel as the bile farming of the bears in China and other areas of the world. The mares stand on rubber mats, are taken out for exercise once a day and are inspected regularly by local veterinarians and animal rights people. The catheter's are kept cleaned and the animals healthy - at least that's how it's 'supposed' to be. They are let out to roam freely after the birth of the foal the beginning of May and until they're re-bred, then brought back in in the fall. It's horrific that this is still going on and needs to stop, but the bears have a much, much harder time of it, imo.

It's actually an important medication for some serious liver conditions. But there's no excuse to use the natural product since the synthetic is just as good.

Really?...Why?..I certainly don't.

Look at their rate of female infanticide.

http://www.endbearfarming.org/en/

Animals Asia

They have a sanctuary for "farmed" bears.

http://www.animalsasia.org/

I don't give a damn about borders. This kind of hideous cruelty has to stop.

can you make the link its own OP to get more visibility?

:-(

Thanks for the thread, villager.

how they can be so stupid and cruel.

I'd rather live with animals than 99% of the people on this planet.

Bless the Bears.

WHATTHEFUCKINGDAMNKINDOFHORSESHITISTHAT!!???!!:puke:

too bad so many short change the intelligence of animals.

:cry:

the mental ability to kill itself and its offspring. I really don't see it as a higher brain function. Pain and cruelty overwrite the basic self-preservation all animals have and the conclusion is terminiation by any means. Now, WHAT THE FUCK are the Chinese doing this for? They even admit there are other ways to get the 'medicine' needed from the gall bladders by synthetic means...which leads me to believe that all the people that do things like this are SICK FUCKERS that deserve a bullet to the head and a short burial.

...suck.

You wonder where "God is?" Well, he made people and saw how bad he fucked up, then split. Thanks for throwing us under the bus.

but I can imagine that they feel for their young and experience pain and emotional attachment. People who do such things to other animals are sick.

but I also posted a link to this same article, and my reaction to it was less about the animals' response, and more on ehy human beings are so cold, cruel and evil.

If a simple news item like this shows anything, it shows the difference among the lot of us. For those who seem to ignore the true tragedy of the situation, where animals have been torured in such a manner for the alleged "good" of humans, are we so inured to the plight of animals in such situations that we fail to show concern for the other creatures in the world?

I find this kind of news simply just another nail in the coffin of human existence. We are no better, but perhaps even flat out worse than the other animals because we have the conscious thought of knowing the difference between right and wrong, and chose to do wrong, anyhow.

Some of the greatest people in history have condemned their own species for such horror, and I am mystified as to why it never truly sinks in. Instead of simply speaking out against such practices, we need to do more than ignore it until it goes away.

Subjecting bears to bile farms has been around for a very long time, and yet it continues, with little let-up or stoppage. Atrocities against almost every single species in the world happen daily. And yet, it continues. There are so few who will risk their lives or limbs to put a dent in any such trade, and those who do are often ridiculed for their courage in facing down the juggernaut of the human race.

It's never going to stop, is it? Those of us who have put any effort into rescue or animal rights, or animal welfare know it's never going to go away. If it's going to stop, we have to be the ones to stop it. We're the only ones who can make the animal abuse go away or arrest it in its tracks.

I have to say: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, and boy, what a problem.

After a nap inspired by thinking about unspeakably grim cruelty and misery, I took my roommate's stupid, poorly trained dog for a long walk and kicked the ball for her. I regularly take her out at least once a day so she can get outdoors. Dog lover I am, but this dog is at the "bottom of the heap". I call her "the worst dog ever". But this evening, I wanted this animal to have a nice time, and have a little freedom.

This is "the worst dog in the world", as I think of her. She is poorly trained, cries/whines loudly any chance she gets, won't listen, is horrible on a leash...she doesn't feel the choke chain tightening around her neck as we hold her back from attacking other dogs or people.

But I let her off leash, when I felt confident there weren't any other dogs/people around. I was thinking about the tragic bear torture the whole time, and how those bears are denied any freedom of movement at all, their entire lives. I kicked a broken basketball for her (yes, she broke that ball with her teeth last week) but at least she has teeth...unlike those tragic bears.

I had a really nice time with the roommate's dog, and I know the "worst dog in the world" loves me a whole lot!