The cruel story of the moonbears.

In China, Vietnam and Korea the moonbears (so called for a white stain in the shape of the moon on their breast) are abused and tortured to extract their precious bile, used in the Asian traditional pharmaceutical. 

IN CHINA...
In the past, bears were hunted and killed in their habitat but at the end of the 1980s the government decided to set up the bile farms, where the substance is taken from living bears. 
They extract the bile with a technique named "free-dripping": a hole (which is always open) is created in the abdomen of the animal and through it the bile drips out. This is totally inhuman and it provokes unimaginable pain to the bear and a high death rate in the farms, where the moonbears are kept in small cages. 

IN VIETNAM...
The moonbears are subjected to an indefinite number of cruel treatments. Some of them undergo surgeries every two or three months and they often die after three or four surgical operations. 
Bears usually have long needles inserted in the gall bladders to pump out the bile. They are drugged with Ketamine, which is illegal. All of this often leads to the dispersion of bile and to a slow and painful death caused by the peritonitis. 

IN KOREA...
There are only 30 specimens left in the wild. 
In 1992 the bile farms have been forbidden by the Korean government, but there are still 108 left where more than 1300 moonbears are locked. 
The Koreans are among the largest consumers of gallbladders and bear bile and this has created a rich black market between Korea and China.