In China, controversy over bear bile farming as Asia's animal rights movement grows

In the New York Times, Andrew Jacobs reports on new outrage over the business of selling bile extracted from Asiatic black bears, a threatened species also known as the moon bear. The extraction process requires open wounds for "milkings" that take place three times a day. "The bears’ teeth are invariably worn down from gnawing on the bars of their cages and their feet are often in pitiful shape because few of the animals have ever walked on the ground....The years of pain and confinement are so traumatizing, some of the rescued bears spend endless hours butting their heads against walls or gnawing on their limbs."