Rik,
Looking forward to the Suigetsu camp. I was going to suggest (but didn't because you asked for substitutes) that harvesting bear through hunting is an ethical alternative to the illegal products that almost always come from intensive bear farms in the PRC. The problem, in addition to the fact that the bears are treated badly, is that their life-span in captivity is significantly shorter in these farms than in the wild - so wild bears are still poached but kept alive to be sent to the farms, where the bile is harvested through tubes inserted into their gallbladders. Altogether it's a horrible practice and it doesn't prevent the destruction of the wild bear population due to the money to be made supplying the farms.
Hunting for bear, on the other hand, is I think ethical insofar as it fulfills one of the true reasons for hunting: to supply meat for the table, fur, (and in this case, an herbal medicine) - so long as the wild bear population can easily sustain hunting pressure. I don't have a lot of experience hunting, but it's something I'd like to take up in the near future, as my dad hunted for deer, grouse, and pheasant all his life. Tom has a student who's an avid hunter and I've heard that he has gone bear hunting in upstate New York. I was thinking of contacting him and will let you know his thoughts on the efficacy of harvesting bear gallbladder if you would like. One would need to know, for example, how to keep the gallbladder fresh during transit and how to prepare it for use as an herbal medicine.
Best,
Steve Lamade
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Originally Posted by Gongli
