Seoul, South Korea
AP
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South Korea said it will formally end its dwindling yet much-criticized bear bile farming industry this week, though about 200 bears are still kept in pens and raised for their gallbladders.
The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment announced Tuesday it will ban breeding and possession of bears and extraction of their bile beginning January 1. The change is in line with a revised animal rights protection law that imposes up to two or five years of prison sentences to violators.
South Korea is one of the few countries that allow farming to extract bile from bears, mostly Asiatic black bears known as moon bears, for traditional medicine or…
