Bear hunting and gall bladders...

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m17s_guy

New member
so im thinking of taking a guided hunt here in GA for some black bear, and found that ALL of the guide services require you to destroy the gall bladder during the field dress....
Anyone know why that is?

Also my important question is what bullet / load i should be toting for my 150-200 lb class bear coming out of my rem700 308. this will be my first consideration on anything bigger than white tail or muley, and i dont want to have an iffy shot cause the bear undo suffering...

any info would be appreciated
 
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egor20

New member
On the black market in certain Asian countries a bears gall bladder can go for up to $3.000 for medicinal purposes. There is a lot of poaching out there where people will shoot a bear just for the gall bladder.
 
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dalegribble

New member
why would guides required you to destroy the gall bladder? if i paid for a hunt and could sell the body parts afterwards it would just help pay for the hunt.
 
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alloy

New member
Couple few years or so years ago, some "so called" guides taking everyone they knew out after bears, for the gall bladders and parts. It was a regular international crime stink.
The gov had a gun shop/check station set up and staffed for years making that case. I think you'd have to know some seriously odd folks to sell the stuff.
I can see real guides not wanting any confusion, or association w/ that kind of thing. They probobly have the policy not against you per se, but against someone that won't abide by to the simple terms you stated.
No agreement to destroy the parts...no hunt guide.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/jan/11/20040111-122007-6565r/
 
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buck460XVR

New member
why would guides required you to destroy the gall bladder? if i paid for a hunt and could sell the body parts afterwards it would just help pay for the hunt.
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..because in most states, it is illegal to sell or buy wild game or parts thereof. Exceptions are usually hide, horns and/or mounts. Guides will ask the hunter to destroy the gall bladder so they cannot be accused of taking and selling them later.
 
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m17s_guy

New member
thx for the info, didnt know that something as odd as a gall bladder would fetch big money on the (?) black market. maybe i should sell mine :D

also thx for the tip on the 165gr bullet. i have some sitting on the shelf, and will have to dust them off and double check the zero on the old nikon before i bite the bullet and drop cash on the hunt.

and dale. i do believe that in GA selling any part of ANY game animal is illegal. i could be wrong, but i do know the local sheriffs dept. asked us for assistance last fall in going to haul off a bunch of whitetail carcasses that some guy was attempting to sell to a charity (hunters for the hungry) and he got hit with a bunch of stuff including poaching, because he didnt have most of the hanging deer tagged.
 
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spacemanspiff

New member
Considering that Alaska has a lot more bears to hunt, we see a lot more poaching and illegal harvesting of various game for the purpose of unlawfully exporting. F&G performs sting ops where they pose as customers and catch the guides doing a lot of dirt. They often find freezers full of body parts at the guides homes and businesses.

I think that guides who insist on destroying the valuable parts so they ensure there is no illegal harvesting is a responsible act, and I commend those guides for doing that.
 
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Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
Do some browsing on the black market in parts of various animals. It's astounding.

Yemenis pay $30,000 to $50,000 for rhino horns to use as handles on daggers.

Asiatics are big into aphrodisiacs. AmerInds at one time were killing deer and elk while in velvet, taking only the antlers for sale into that Asian market and leaving the rest of the animal. Same sort of thing for poaching of bears.

And, of course, ivory...
 
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gearhounds

New member
Ivory was valued for a different selfish reason as is Rhino horn; ignorance and superstition are the main reasons gall bladders, tiger penis's, antlers in velvet, etc are so desirable.

Maybe as a nation we should begin a program of harvesting gall bladders from the meat industry (cows, pigs, goats, sheep, etc) and flooding the market with "bear gall bladders" until no one can tell what they'll get. The problem was epidemic in the late 80's-early 90's, and lord knows how many game animals were slaughtered and left to rot.
 
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Double Naught Spy

New member
Asiatics are big into aphrodisiacs.
Click to expand...

This is a bit of a gross over generalization. Lots of folks are. Have you seen the market for aphrodisiacs and related products in the US? We may not buy animal parts for the job, but if it comes in a pill, we spend millions and millions for it.

Ivory was valued for a different selfish reason as is Rhino horn; ignorance and superstition are the main reasons gall bladders, tiger penis's, antlers in velvet, etc are so desirable.
Click to expand...

Careful when waving the ignorance flag too aggressively or you might get wrapped up in the banner as well. As with many native medicines from around the world, not all of the animal-based products you mention are used out of ignorance or superstition. The same can be said for plant and mineral uses, too. In fact, western medicine has spent considerable time looking to how native medicine has managed to work so well for many treatments, be they Native American, Bushman, Asian, etc.

Bear gall bladder and bile contain chemicals that are indeed beneficial and are used in medical treatments, though often synthesized or extracted from other sources. These include ursodeoxycholic acid, taurine derivatives and chenodeoxycholic acid, for example.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12190957
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenodeoxycholic_acid
http://www.fda.gov.tw/files/publish_periodical/8-4-8.PDF

Some things don't make much sense. I saw this paper (below) presented at the International Council for Zooarchaeology meetings in Konstanz, Germany back in the 90s and visited with the author and examined specimins at USFWS. Not all the products have bonafide medicinal uses and fakes are quite numerous, sometimes even dangerous. The chemical hardeners used to harden the soft tissue (beyond drying) of the intricately and elaborately carved bull penis to emulate a tiger baculum are potentially poisonous, even.

I think this is a very unique read...
http://www.lab.fws.gov/idnotes/TigerPenisIDN6.pdf

I am not familiar with any real benefits of tiger penis medications, but antler velvet is another matter. It does appear to have some beneficial components, but whether or not they can be extracted and made properly beneficial may be another matter all together and the FDA has cracked down on many antler velvet supplement sellers because of unsubstantiated claims.

http://www.drugs.com/npp/deer-velvet.html
 
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Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
We were in the context of animals, not modern pharmaceuticals. I drifted a bit into the wider black market, just as an idea for others to find a dab of info on the broader subject...
 
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Vt.birdhunter

New member
If I legally take a black bear during bear season, on my own land, can I LEGALLY sell the gall bladder for anywhere close to $3000???
 
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Double Naught Spy

New member
We were in the context of animals, not modern pharmaceuticals.
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Right. I am glad we are on the same track. Bear gall bladders have useful medical applications. It isn't ignorance or superstition that are the only reasons that the gall bladders get used. Their components are not rendered down to the necessary components like modern drugs, but that doesn't mean that they aren't useful for medicinal reasons. So in the context of animals and only animals, there are many animal parts that have medicinal uses. We mimic them today with refined and/or synthesized versions, but that doesn't negate their original usefulness.

Sure, some applications may not be realistic, no doubt, but to claim out of hand their their use is based on ignorance or superstition alone is inaccurate.
 
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Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
Pretty much, all the articles I've read over the last twenty or more years about the black market trade in animal parts discuss the use in Asia as aphrodisiacs.

That seems to be the major market, moreso than real-world medical uses. I'm not sure there's much true medicinal use for tiger whiskers.

Sixty years ago, the big deal in the US among teeny-boppers about aphrodisiacs was "Spanish Fly". Cantharides. There was almost as much misinformation passed around about that as there is about guns at this website. (The operative word is "almost".) :D
 
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Hunter2678

New member
Anyime you're ok with selling animal parts for big $$ you're going to do more harm than good to the species you take it from..unless you can legitimately renew & farm these animals for these purposes, you'll always endanger their wild numbers. Why you may ask, because poachers don't give a rats azz in selective, responisble or legal harvesting practices...they believe in the $3000 they get paid for each one ( gall bladder in this context)...then it becomes all about greed and we know where that leads. Whether or not its beaver pelts, tiger hides, buffalo hides, ivory tusks, rhino horn, etc etc you cant ignore the devastating affect that greed has historically had and currently still has on animal populations selling thier "parts" .
 
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gearhounds

New member
"Careful when waving the ignorance flag too aggressively or you might get wrapped up in the banner as well. As with many native medicines from around the world, not all of the animal-based products you mention are used out of ignorance or superstition. The same can be said for plant and mineral uses, too. In fact, western medicine has spent considerable time looking to how native medicine has managed to work so well for many treatments, be they Native American, Bushman, Asian, etc.

Bear gall bladder and bile contain chemicals that are indeed beneficial and are used in medical treatments, though often synthesized or extracted from other sources. These include ursodeoxycholic acid, taurine derivatives and chenodeoxycholic acid, for example."

Ridiculous, and you are missing the point, while strengthening mine. To slaughter (there is absolutely no other word that fits) animals for such a tiny fraction of the whole is not only the epitomy of selfish ignorance, it is a crime against nature and everything an outdoorsman/hunter/person of common sense should stand for. As you pointed out, most of these compounds can be produced synthetically, so there is no supportable reason to kill bears, tigers, etc for such selfish reasons. Just to clear here, we are not talking about harvesting a plant or mineral, or even using the byproducts of an existing industry, we are talking retarded, selfish and unneccessary continued destruction.
 
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