The Extinction Club (16 page)

For obvious reasons, I would like to talk about the medicinal reasons for capturing or killing bears. China was the first country to use bear bile & gallbladder in traditional medicine, over 5 centuries ago. It’s now used for just about everything: burns, inflammations, sprains, fractures, haemorrhoids, hepatitis, jaundice, convulsions, diarrhoea, and so on. It’s put in wines, tea, eye drops, suppositories & shampoos.

It was the Chinese Crude Drugs Company that came up with the idea of “bear farming,” of extracting bile from bears raised in captivity. Which they called “milking.” Hundreds of small farms were set up where individuals or families could keep bears in cages in their houses. “Superfarms” came next, which today hold thousands of bears.

Bears (most often Black Bears) are caught in the wild or born on the farm & through a surgical procedure have a metal or rubber catheter inserted into their bile duct or gallbladder. The bear’s bile fluids are then “tapped” from a tube coming out of its belly. In some cases, the bile leaks into a plastic sack continuously. In other cases, the tube is opened & drained out up to four times a day. To prevent the bears from scratching at the bile sack or catheter, they are often fitted with a metal jacket or “corset.” Or their necks are snared with wire.

To make milking easier, the bears are sometimes declawed & their teeth cut out or filed back. Many of the farm workers who collect bile wear crash helmets. Why? Because during milking bears may gnash their teeth, kick, bite, or hit their heads against the bars. After it’s over, the bears are more peaceful — they curl up in their cages, trembling, holding their paws to their stomach.

The animals are lured into these “milking cages” or “squeeze cages” or “coffin cages” with water containing sugar or honey. The bears have no free access to water at other times, so they will be very eager to drink. For the pleasure they pay a high price.

To restrict their movement, the cages are small, measuring around 1 metre by 1 metre by 2 metres. Pressure bars hold the bears down. The animals, which can weigh up to 260 pounds, can barely sit up or turn around. The bars pressing against their bodies leave scars, some over a metre long. Because the cage floors are made of widely spaced metal bars, the bears can never rest their feet on flat ground. So they end up with bleeding lesions.

Most bears have broken & worn teeth from biting the bars — if their teeth haven’t been pulled out beforehand. They also have injuries to their heads, paws & backs from repeated rubbing & banging against the cage bars.

At some farms, where cage bars are more closely spaced, bears are forced to lie in their own feces, which may be several centimetres deep. In these cases, the animals try to create latrines in their small spaces.

In the winter the bears are not allowed to hibernate, despite temperatures that can drop to minus 30. It should be remembered that these are naturally solitary animals. They are wild animals with wild instincts. They are inquisitive & range over a large territory. The claustrophobia they must feel — it’s beyond imagining.

The mortality rates are high, with 60-80% of bears dying during or shortly after their bile operation. The average life span of bears with catheters is under 10 years. The life span of Black Bears in the wild is 25 to 30 years.

The captive bears live their lives in permanent pain. This is the only case I’ve heard of where an animal wants to die, mutilates itself & tries to commit suicide.

The cubs that are born on farms are taken away from their mother when they are 2 to 3 months old, whereas in the wild the cubs would stay with their mothers for 2 to 3 years. They are taught circus tricks — standing on their hind legs, handstands, carrying chairs, walking a tightrope, throwing a ball, riding a bicycle, boxing & so on — to attract visitors to the farms, to help market the bile products. Being photographed with the cubs is part of the fun.

The performing life of a bear is short — it may last only for a year or two. Once a bear reaches two and a half, they will be put in the cages & milked. When they stop producing bile, they are no longer fed. They are either left to die or killed for their paws & gallbladder. In most bear farms, the bears’ paws can be cut off
if a customer requests it. Fresh bear paw costs around $250 & in 4-star hotels a bear paw dish sells for around $500.

When bear populations in Asia began to drop because of overhunting, wildlife traders looked for bear gallbladders in other countries. North American Black Bears, Grizzlies, Polar Bears & even South American Spectacled Bears have been found slaughtered in the wild with just the gallbladder removed. Smugglers have been caught with whole gallbladders dipped in chocolate, trying to pass them off as chocolate figs, or packed in coffee to hide the smell. The growing trade is driving some species, such as the Sun Bear, toward extinction. In Canada alone, the illegal trade in bear parts is estimated to be worth $100 million a year.

In the 1950s Japanese scientists chemically synthesized UDCA, the active ingredient in bear bile. It’s widely available & cheap. There are also over 50 herbal alternatives to bear bile, including Chinese ivy stem, Madagascar periwinkle, dandelion, Japanese thistle & chrysanthemum. Still, people want the “real thing.” As my grandmother used to say, old myths & magic potions, like religions, die hard.

To be continued …

   XI   

C
éleste was telling me all about “bear farming,” things that boggle the mind, chill the spine, when she suddenly stopped and said, “To be continued.” She then closed her eyes, curled up next to a purring Moon, and fell instantly asleep.

“I have to leave you alone again,” I explained to her sleeping body and again in a note, “but this will be the last time.” I took my customary precautions, placing her weapons and two-way within easy reach, bolting the windows, closing the curtains. You couldn’t trust a teenager these days to look after a hamster, but I trusted Céleste to look after the shack, don’t ask me why.

As I opened the door I got a surprise, not from outside from inside. Moon leapt off the bed and shot through my legs, out onto the snow. She waited for me by the van, calmly biting ice from her claws.

The real estate agent was not in his office and the bank manager was on holidays, but there was a padded envelope of documents waiting for me at the bank’s reception desk. Along with a small, gift-wrapped box with a green Post-it on top. Normally, I would’ve ripped them open on the spot, but my mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t get those bears out of my head. I sat down on a chair in the lobby and stared gloomily at the burnt-orange carpet. What was the end of the story? What happened to them?

I eventually rose from the chair and stood in line to pay off a sheaf of overdue oil, electricity and phone bills from the
rectory. When that was done, I sat back down and listlessly opened the envelope.

The sale had been approved, the manager wrote in his impeccable French in one letter and the agent in his peccable French in another, although there remained certain formalities to go through with a notary in Ste-Madeleine in January. Nevertheless, I could move into the rectory for Christmas, on or after the 22nd, if I wished, and enter it for inspections or repairs anytime before then. I looked at my watch: it was the 19th. I was dumbstruck, expecting thickets of red tape and a mountain of back taxes or fines to settle. Or an outright rejection. I ripped open the gift box and pulled out a brown-and-green leather key wallet. Inside it were six brass keys and a silver crucifix.
Joyeux Noël!
was written on the Post-it, in two different handwritings. Bless them.

Except now I was having second thoughts—third and fourth and upward—about the move. Was this the right place for Céleste? How harrowing, re-horrifying, would that be? Not only was she dumped in church mud, but her grandmother was boxed in it. And she’d be a prisoner there—she’d never be able to step outside. I should find another hideout, where no one knows her. In Alaska, say, or New Jersey …

On my way out I passed the two Native vendors, who were setting up shop. The man was clearing away snow with a wooden board, preparing his bed of cardboard, while the other was unfurling a blanket with the coloured pattern of a jaguar, in whose coat the Mayas saw a map of the starry heaven. A placard lying on the ground said
DEMOCRACY WILL NEVER WORK. THERE AREN’T ENOUGH SMART PEOPLE TO ELECT SMART PEOPLE
. As an American, I felt she had put her finger on something. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. I continued on.

“Want a swan?” she asked in English.

I stopped, thinking I’d misheard. “A what?”

From a cloth bag with a drawstring, she pulled out a pearlescent figurine and handed it to me. It wasn’t a swan, it was two swans, with their bills and breast feathers conjoined. A fine piece. Nicely proportioned, intricate detail. Although I know nothing of these things.

“How much?” I said, reaching a hand into my pocket. The bird was a favourite of Céleste’s. No other waterfowl, she said, was as fast in the water or air.

“A gift,” she said.

I pulled out a thick slab of twenties, hesitated, then put it back. “It’s a beautiful piece,” I said. “Did you make it?”

She pointed toward her friend. “He’s the artist. I’m the anarchist.”

I looked over at the artist. “Thank you,” I said, but he didn’t look up from whatever it was he was doing. “That’s very kind of you … both.” I’m a fool for things like this, these unexpected acts of kindness, so I got out of there fast, before I started bawling or something.