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Black Bear Trade |
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AMERICAN BLACK BEARS IN PERIL
ILLEGAL TRADE IN BEARS Not all bear hunting in North America is legal. In recent years, when park rangers have discovered black bear carcasses discarded in the mountains and forests, they knew that poachers had been there. Why do some people hunt black bears illegally? For some, the money they can make by selling black bear body parts is worth the risk they take.
Here are some facts concerning why some of our wild black bears in the United States are killed by poachers:
> The illegal trade in bear parts is driven by the worldwide demand for their use in traditional Chinese medicine. These products are popular in Asian countries and Asian communities around the world.
> Oriental medical applications include treatment for cancer, burns, pain, asthma, respiratory ailments, diabetes, liver disorders, and stomach flu. Pacific Rim nations, particularly South Korea, use the bile from the gall bladders as a cure-all. There are substitutions for bile, but they are not used.
> The most coveted Oriental medicinal part of the bear is the bile within the gall bladder. It contains an acid called tauro ursodeoxycholic that can only be found in significant amounts in the gall bladders of bears.
> Dried, ground, and sold by the gram, it [the gall bladder] has a higher street value than cocaine.
> Other forms of use include soaking the galls in clear alcohol, such as vodka, which is then consumed.
> Sellers can receive anywhere from a few hundred dollars to over $3,000 per gall.
> Bear paws are also a valuable commodity and are often made into soup and sold in Asian restaurants for more than $60 per person in the U.S. and for more than $1000 overseas. The soup is considered a delicacy as well as a curative for respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments.
> The paws are often made into display items, such as ashtrays, and the claws are used in the making of jewelry.
> The serious decline of the Asian black bear population has lead to the American black bear being targeted for this trade. North America’s black bear population is healthy but considered to be a vulnerable target as pressures mount for a new source for bile and paws, as well as claws and teeth for jewelry.
> Law enforcement agencies estimate that poachers kill more than 40,000 bears per year in the U.S., including hundreds illegally taken from our national parks. Between 1995 and 1999, Federal law enforcement authorities uncovered more than 70 illegal shipments of bear parts enroute to Asia.
> World Wildlife Fund report notes that the illegal trade in wild animals, plants, and wildlife products reaches in excess of $20 billion a year, and according to Bear Watch, a British Columbia-based conservation group, the worldwide trafficking in bear parts is valued at $2 billion.
Re-Printed with Permission to KMG by National Park Service. Taken in Part from News Release January 7, 2004 by Claire Comer, Shenandoah National Park "Joint Undercover Operation Links International Black Market to Virginia Mountains"
A handful of U.S. states engage in the legal trade of black bear body parts including gall bladders (as of 2002): New York, Maine, Vermont, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.
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