The bear facts

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, biology, natural history, bears

This is a very unfortunate bear. It is an Asiatic Black Bear, also called a Moon Bear. It has been in this "crush cage" its entire life, and will probably die here. A couple of times per week a long, very thick needle is thrust into its side to extract bile from its gall bladder. The bare patch on the bear's belly isn't just from gall extraction; its hair is generally falling out because of malnourishment, in spite of the fact that it is obese: "empty calories" in their grimmest manifestation.

As we learn in Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie, 12,000 of these bears are "farmed" in China and much of Southeast Asia, including a few countries such as Vietnam, where the practice has been legally banned (but that's very poorly enforced). Twelve thousand is about one quarter of the entire population of these bears. The bile sells for about $1 for 1cc, which comes to 25,000 Vietnamese Dong or 4,000 Cambodian Riels. The bile is claimed to have great medicinal benefits. It actually does have certain medical uses, but there are other medicines that work better, though they may cost more.

A telling anecdote from Chapter 4, "Liquid Gold": In a hospital the author encountered a bear farmer she had met. He told her he had joint pains. She asked, "You have lots of bile!" He said, "I want something that works."

On to other bears. The smallest is the Sun Bear; adults average about 130 pounds, half the size of a Moon Bear. The largest is the Kodiak population of the Brown Bear, up to 1,000 pounds and more. The most dangerous is the Sloth Bear of India, which kills more people than all other bears combined (This is a dreadful combination of very dense population of humans and an extremely territorial bear). Next largest is a tie between the Brown Bears of the "Lower 48 states", also called the Grizzly Bear, and the Polar Bear. These two bears are also considered man-killers, but only the Polar Bear thinks of humans as prey. We are about the size of a seal, their favorite snack. The most popular bear is the Panda Bear, which tops out at around 300 pounds. These are also the rarest in the wild. The most populous bear is the American Black Bear (the only one I've seen in the wild), in the 600-pound range, but a few old males have topped 900 pounds. The number in the U.S. is nearly half a million, with half that many in Canada. Finally, the South American Spectacled Bear is rather rare (less than 18,000 remaining), and is the most cautious and shy. In her worldwide travels, with experts to guide her, she never saw one of these in the wild.

There are a few illustrations in the book, primarily chapter headings such as this one for Chapter 1. The artist, Arjun Parikh, has a unique style.

The book is a feast of information and impressions of not just the bears, but of human interactions with them in the various places they inhabit. None of them is as cuddly as our imagination dictates, though the tiny Sun Bear comes close (just watch out for 3-inch claws). 

Please consider finding, and signing, a petition to Asian governments to ban farming bears for bile.

P.S. Although I typically add Metric conversions when I use English units, there are so many this time that it would be cumbersome. I expect an educated reader to be able to divide pounds by 2.2 to get kg, and to multiply inches by 2.54 (or just 2.5) to get cm.