Metabolic derangements and reduced survival of bile-extracted Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Across China and Southeast Asia, an estimated 17,000 bears are currently farmed for bile, primarily for traditional medicines. Depending on country, bile is extracted daily via transabdominal gallbladder fistulas, indwelling catheters, or needle aspiration. Despite claims that bears do not develop adverse effects from bile extraction, health issues identified in bears removed from bile farms include bile-extraction site infections, abdominal hernias, peritonitis, cholecystitis, hepatic neoplasia, cardiac disease, skeletal abnormalities, and abnormal behaviors. We present a comprehensive assessment of the effects of bile farming by comparing serum biochemical and hematological values of bears from farms that were bile-extracted (BE) and bears from farms not bile-extracted (FNE) with bears from non-farm captive (ZOO) and free-range (FR) environments. We hypothesized BE bears would have significant laboratory abnormalities compared to all non-extracted bear groups. We also hypothesized BE bears would have reduced long-term survival compared to FNE bears despite removal from farms. RESULTS: BE bears exhibited the highest values and greatest variation (on a population level) in laboratory parameters compared to all non-extracted bear groups particularly for alanine transaminase, gamma glutamyltransferase (GGT), total bilirubin (TBIL), alkaline phosphatase (ALKP), blood urea nitrogen, creatinine (CREA), and total white blood cell count. Significant differences were detected between bear groups when accounting for season, sex, and/or age. BE bears exhibited greater mean serum GGT compared to all non-extracted bear groups, and the odds of having elevated TBIL were 7.3 times greater for BE bears, consistent with hepatobiliary disease. Biochemical parameter elevations in BE bears persisted up to 14 years post-rescue, consistent with long-term effects of bile-extraction. BE bears that arrived with elevated CREA and ALKP had median survival times of 1 and 4 years respectively, and regardless of laboratory abnormalities, BE bears had significantly shorter survival times compared to FNE bears. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide strong evidence that bile extraction practices not only represent a temporary constraint for bears' welfare, but confer distinct long-term adverse health consequences. Routine laboratory panels may be insensitive to detect the extent of underlying illness in BE bears as these bears have significantly reduced survival regardless of biochemical assessment compared to FNE bears.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".