Drug firm invites all to bear farm
By Wing Tan and Steffie Lu |
February 25, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE Fujian Province-based Guizhentang pharmaceutical company, at the center of public fury over the treatment of bears, said yesterday it will open its farm to the public every day and even allow visitors to extract bile themselves after being trained.
About 70 people, including eight from animal-rights and environmental organizations, attended the second "open day" at the bear farm yesterday. It marked an attempt by Guizhentang to quell public anger after only media were allowed to visit the company's bear farm on Wednesday.
However, only two animal and environmental organizations showed up - Guizhou Animal and Plants Protection Organization and Friendly Environment Center. Pian Shankong from GAPPO knelt down to the bears to "apologize" for the pain that many say the bears suffer, an act seen by some as simply putting on a show for the cameras. Guizhentang says the bile extraction does not hurt the bears at all.
Guizhentang, whose business relies exclusively on extracting bear bile, recently became the subject of national controversy over its expansion plans. Earlier this month it announced it would be seeking an initial public offering to raise cash by selling shares.
Meanwhile, the Beijing-based Loving Animals Foundation is calling for a law to stop bear bile extraction. Officials said they will try to persuade the country's lawmakers to submit such proposals at the coming annual session of the country's legislators and political advisers.
"I think we have conquered the biggest difficulty of banning bear bile extraction, which was that the public wasn't aware how the bears were maltreated," said Xiao Bai, foundation director. "With the rising of public consciousness, we believe that the law will be made before long."
In another development, netizens complained yesterday that their microblog accounts were hijacked, as they found their accounts publishing posts in support of Guizhentang.
In a particularly egregious example, an account "Shina719" on Weibo.com, China's biggest social website, started to publish continuous posts supporting Guizhentang on Wednesday - even though the owner of the account had been dead for about three months.
His furious friends complained to the website, and the posts were deleted.
About 70 people, including eight from animal-rights and environmental organizations, attended the second "open day" at the bear farm yesterday. It marked an attempt by Guizhentang to quell public anger after only media were allowed to visit the company's bear farm on Wednesday.
However, only two animal and environmental organizations showed up - Guizhou Animal and Plants Protection Organization and Friendly Environment Center. Pian Shankong from GAPPO knelt down to the bears to "apologize" for the pain that many say the bears suffer, an act seen by some as simply putting on a show for the cameras. Guizhentang says the bile extraction does not hurt the bears at all.
Guizhentang, whose business relies exclusively on extracting bear bile, recently became the subject of national controversy over its expansion plans. Earlier this month it announced it would be seeking an initial public offering to raise cash by selling shares.
Meanwhile, the Beijing-based Loving Animals Foundation is calling for a law to stop bear bile extraction. Officials said they will try to persuade the country's lawmakers to submit such proposals at the coming annual session of the country's legislators and political advisers.
"I think we have conquered the biggest difficulty of banning bear bile extraction, which was that the public wasn't aware how the bears were maltreated," said Xiao Bai, foundation director. "With the rising of public consciousness, we believe that the law will be made before long."
In another development, netizens complained yesterday that their microblog accounts were hijacked, as they found their accounts publishing posts in support of Guizhentang.
In a particularly egregious example, an account "Shina719" on Weibo.com, China's biggest social website, started to publish continuous posts supporting Guizhentang on Wednesday - even though the owner of the account had been dead for about three months.
His furious friends complained to the website, and the posts were deleted.
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