CUSTOMS officers will soon be armed with bear detection kits in a bid to halt the burgeoning illegal trade in bear parts such as gall bladders and bear bile. The kit, being developed by the London-based World Society for the Protection of Animals, can detect products containing bear derivatives within minutes.
Despite being prohibited by the Convention on Illegal Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), bear bile and gall bladders are popular ingredients in traditional medicines. They are used to treat ailments ranging from arthritis to liver disease. Gall bladders can fetch up to 18 times their weight in gold, says Eric Chivian, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard.
Because of this, bear poaching and farming are rife in parts of south-east Asia such as China, Vietnam and Korea. In China, as many as 9000 bears are farmed in cramped conditions where they are subjected