The WildLife: Bear Bile Trade in Asia, Kaitlyn Foley

Kaitlyn Foley, senior programme officer at TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, talks about the bear bile trade in Asia. She tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme how recent research by TRAFFIC shows that the illegal bear bile trade continues unabated across Asia on a large scale. The poaching and illegal trade of bears is driven largely by the demand for their bile, which…

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Expansion of Bear Bile Production by Chinese Firm?

A blog from The Wall Street Journal notes that Gui Zhen Tang Co., one of China’s largest bear bile production facilities and southern China’s largest bear farm, recently raised $11 million to expand its business in the traditional medicine market. An article in the UK’s Telegraph notes that local media reports of the company’s plans to be listed on…

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Bear Bile Trafficking Stopped in Los Angeles, California

On March 27, 2009 the press reported that a South Korean woman living in LA illegally imported nearly a kilogram of bear bile via mail into the United States for traditional Chinese medicine.  One kilo of bear bile has a street value of about $40,000, and is worth more than a kilo of cocaine.  This…

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