Chinese Bear-Bile Farmer Devoured By Own Animals - Reuters

[hatrack]

BEIJING - A Chinese man who raised bears to tap them for their bile, prized as a traditional medicine in Asia, has been killed and eaten by his animals, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.

Six black bears attacked keeper Han Shigen as he was cleaning their pen in the northeastern province of Jilin on Monday, Xinhua said.
"The ill-fated man died on the spot and was eaten up by the ferocious bears," it said, citing a report in the Beijing News.

In practices decried by animal rights groups, bile is extracted through surgically implanted catheters in the bear's gall bladders, or by a "free-dripping" technique by which bile drips out through holes opened in the animals' abdomens.

More than 200 farms in China keep about 7,000 bears to tap their bile, which traditional Chinese medicine holds can cure fever, liver illness and sore eyes."

EDIT

Catheterize my gall bladder, will ya?!??!




http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/32925/story.htm

[CottonBear]

1. Karma can be a bitch. n/t

[phantom power]

2. I'd like to feel sorry for him... but I just can't.

[pecwae]

6. Nor here. nt

[hatrack]

11. " . . . for every man's death diminishes me" - John Donne

Or, then again, maybe not. :evilgrin:

[henslee]

3. I'm glad. Fuck China and their bear bile farmers,

[YOY]

4. Sometimes you eat the bear and...

sometimes the bear, pissed after years of torture, eats you.

[Missy M]

5. I think we all might be ferocious if we had catheters surgically...

implanted in our gall bladders or holes opened in our abdomens. The only difference is I wouldn't have the man for my dinner.

[castiron]

7. Thanks for the smile today!

[SteppingRazor]

8. Yet another casualty of benighted superstition..

For that matter, the animals themselves are victims as well.

Education, education, education.

[Zenlitened]

9. Tsk, tsk. We mustn't show disrespect for this man's beliefs. - n/t

[SteppingRazor]

10. Oh, I dunno. I have serious problems with...

complete equality of cultural beliefs. It opens the door to acceptance of all sorts of things -- female circumcision, for example. Or the near-extinction of the rhino, because it's powdered horn is supposed to be an aphrodisiac.

Or what about recently developed cultural beliefs? The wholesale slaughter of baby girls in China, for example. Or the sterilization of women who insist on keeping all their children.
Or the eugenics programs of the Nazis.

How are we to judge any of these things as wrong, if we insit on looking through the prism of the culture itself?

[Zenlitened]

12. "How are we to judge any of these things...?"

Good question, and I agree: we run the risk of seeming to condone harmful behaviors when we're discouraged from speaking about them honestly. :hi:

But here we are, in a climate where we're routinely being admonished to "disagree respectfully." Whatever that actually means. It would seem to rule out whole swaths of the dictionary one might find useful in describing primative belief-- er, um, beliefs that are not compatible with one's own, er, point of view.

Quite a conundrum, huh? Drilling holes in a frikkin bear to suck its liquids out strikes some people as ignorant. Speaking to holy spirits, beseeching deities, or munching on wafers of god-meat might strike others as similarly superstitious. But who is to say which is the more absurd? It seems to me that it's just a matter of mob rule, lately.

[SteppingRazor]

13. On a personal level, I agree...

I'm not a great believer in the Invisible Cloud Being. That said, there is a huge difference between the examples you've cited -- beseeching deities or munching wafers of God-meat (as a veteran of 10 years of Catholic school, I love that last one, by the way) and the examples I cited.

Your examples don't actually harm any other creature. Mine do.

[Zenlitened]

14. That's true, the harm is not nearly as direct.

But when the same people are the ones leading -- or funding -- the assault on lesbian and gay civil rights, womens' rights, science education, etc. etc. ...then the harm is measurable.

:)

[SteppingRazor]

15. true enough n/t

[blindpig]

16. good

no pity.

The right to arm bears sounds better all the time.

While there is much good to be found in the herbal component of Chinese traditional medicine the use of tigers, rhinos, bears ad infinitum is bogus sympathetic magic. Many of these practices are not even that ancient, not appearing in the oldest literature. Today it is as much conspicuous consumption as anything else.

[hankthecrank]

17. Oh that's Bad

no not really!!! What goes around comes around!!!

Maybe the bears told him today is not looking to good for you.

Made me smile Thx