ANIMALS - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 86

medicines. Like deer in the genus Cervus , musk deer are docile herbivores that breed
readily in captivity. But unlike other deer, musk deer are solitary in the wild and do not
aggregate; they may even defend individual territories against conspecifics. Notably,
musk deer are exceedingly “nervous” animals—their flight response seemingly cocked
perpetually with a hair-trigger—who in their native habitats will explode off into brush or
up steep cliffs at even the slightest hint of danger. Data on captive musk deer tend to be
regarded in China as state secrets, thus even Chinese questionnaire surveys have difficulty
establishing exactly what goes on at musk deer farms. 26 But it seems clear that keeping
these fragile and high-strung animals healthy and thriving in captivity is difficult and
expensive. 27 Despite almost fifty years of energetic efforts, Chinese musk deer breeding
is not yet economically viable. 28 Chinese musk deer breeders, like the diminutive animals
themselves, seem to have been banging their heads against walls for years, trying to make
work what eons of evolutionary history have already foreclosed. 29
Brown, sun, and Asiatic black bears all are native to China and all produce ursode-
oxycholic acid, a bile acid considered to have medicinal properties. 30 All are classified
as carnivores and love meat, but subsist in the wild chiefly on vegetation. Because they
eat almost anything, fattening them up in captivity is not difficult. As of mid-1996, over
96 percent of the 7,642 bears then estimated to be in captivity were Asiatic black bears. 31
Sun bears are rare in China. They are small (thus probably producing less bile per bear),
and their bile is also of lesser quality: together, these three reasons probably explain why
so few sun bears are farmed. Brown bears in China are called grizzlies in North America,
and their fearsome reputation is well deserved. Although Asiatic black bears are also fully
capable of killing people, brown bears are far more dangerous. Asiatic black bears have
a temperament much more suited to farming than do brown bears. Because most bears
are typically solitary in the wild, it is surprising to see groups of fifteen or twenty Asiatic
black bears milling about in common areas of bear farms (at least the better managed
among them) like so many furry cows. This becomes less surprising when one remembers
that even ill-tempered grizzly bears tolerate each other at close proximity when food is
abundant (e.g., at salmon spawning sites, insect hatches, or—in days thankfully mostly
gone by—at garbage dumps). Asiatic black bears, it turns out, are quite amenable to liv-
ing in captivity.
So does captive breeding of species such as musk deer and Asiatic black bears douse
the demand and thus help free-ranging animals, or does it simply fan the flames of
unsustainable and unenforceable wild harvest? Before searching for an answer in the
biological or economic realms, it is worth considering that a strategic decision is implied
regarding the social acceptance of using these animals for their by-products in the first
place. If this rationale for captive breeding is sound, it presupposes that consumptive
use of these products (albeit from artificially reared individuals) is culturally accept-
able. In contrast, if consumptive use is objectionable regardless of the animal's source,
then captive breeding in this sense will also be objectionable regardless of its effects on
wild populations. Western-based organizations advocating that China phase out its bear
farms are not suggesting harvesting of wild bears as an alternative; they want Chinese
officials to persuade those who consume bear gall to stop doing so, and to use artificial