The world’s smallest species of bear, the sun bear ( Helarctos malayanus ), was classed as ‘Vulnerable’ and accepted for inclusion in the IUCN Red List in November 2007.**
The international organisation that regulates trade in endangered species, CITES, had already listed sun bear as threatened with extinction and notes that there is a trade in sun bear ‘body parts’ including for traditional medicines as discussed at a previous blog post Sun Bears (Part 1).
The sun bear lives in mainland Southeast Asia, Sumatra and Borneo and was previously listed as Data Deficient byt the IUCN, meaning that not enough was known about the species to give it a status on the Red List.
This picture of a sun bear is published with permission from Gabriella Frediksson (via Ann Novek).
Rob Steinmetz, co-chair of the IUCN Bear Specialist Group’s sun bear expert team, said in November that: “We estimate that sun bears have declined by at least 30 percent over the past 30 years (three bear generations)…
Deforestation has reduced both the area and quality of their habitat. Where habitat is now protected, commercial poaching remains a significant threat.”
[Thanks to Ann Novek for the picture and link to the IUCN media release.]
———————————-
** The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species classifies species according to their extinction risk. It is a searchable online database containing the global status and supporting information on more than 41,000 species. Its primary goal is to identify and document the species most in need of conservation attention and provide an index of the state of biodiversity. The IUCN Red List threat categories are the following, in descending order of threat:
1. Extinct or Extinct in the Wild;
2. Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable: species threatened with global extinction;
3. Near Threatened: species close to the threatened thresholds or that would be threatened without ongoing specific conservation measures;
4. Least Concern: species evaluated with a low risk of extinction;
5. Data Deficient: no evaluation because of insufficient data.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Perhaps they should be reclassified the setting sun bear.
In Myanmar , Thailand Lao PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam, sun bears are commonly poached for their gall bladders ( i,e bile) and bear -paws , the former is used as a Traditional Chinese Medicine and the latter as an expensive delicacy.
In China and Vietnam, bile is milked from commercially -farmed bears, however , as there are few sun bears in China , farms there contain mainly Asiatic black bears.
Converesely, both sun bears and Asiatic black bears are farmed in Vietnam.
Bears are routinely removed from the wild to stock or restock these small farms, so the argument that bear farming is ” sustainable” or rescuing wild populations is a myth.
This information from the link that was posted :
Bruce McLellan, co-chair of the IUCN Bear Specialist Group, said: “An enormous amount of effort and funding for conservation and management continue to be directed at bears in North America where their status is relatively favorable. It is unfortunate that so little is directed at bears in Asia and South America where the need is extreme. We are trying to change this situation but success is slow.”
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species – Conservation status of the world’s bears
Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) – Endangered (EN) [Factsheet – PDF]
Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus) – Vulnerable (VU) [Factsheet – PDF]
Asiatic Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus) – Vulnerable (VU) [Factsheet – PDF]
Sloth Bear (Melursus ursinus) – Vulnerable (VU) [Factsheet – PDF]
Andean Bear (Tremarctos ornatus) – Vulnerable (VU) [Factsheet – PDF]
Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) – Vulnerable (VU) [Factsheet – PDF]
Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) – Least Concern (LC) [Factsheet – PDF]
American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) – Least Concern (LC) [Factsheet – PDF]
Isn’t it strange that the bears which are endemic to the United States are all doing well (actual doing better then well – “least concern” connotes an activist experiencing cognitive dissonance)?
It’s a farce that they include polar bears on that list as vulnerable.
Dudes watching too many Al Gore reruns. Clogged his logic.
It seems that the Fact Sheet for the polar bear is not ready yet. If you open the pdf-file, it shows the Fact Sheet for the Giant Panda.
Maybe the WWF could stop being a climate alarmism propaganda machine and become the true WWF again?
” yeah yeah.
who here is doing what to save them?” – Pixie
OK, I have not much clue about bears, except maybe I know a little about polar bears and brown bears… so check out the factsheets for information…
Personally, I have written letters to EVERY Swedish EU parlamentician , so EU stops the bear bile farming in China ( now I read in the factsheet , farms in China mostly deal with Asiatic black bears)…I have got a reply fromEVERY ONE , and they have told me that the practise of bear farming is disgusting ( but talk is cheap)…
What to do…. maybe inform our Asian friends not to engage in tradional Asiatic medicine that deals with wild animal parts…
This was the ” action ” that I took part in :
”
The European Parliament recently declared that bear farming was not acceptable to its members. This angered some of China’s officials and stakeholders in the trade, and caused the pace of the rescue to slow, as the issue became a hotbed of sensitivity. However, it was a bold but necessary step. It is imperative that the government is continually reminded that this industry is unacceptable to most people around the world, as well as people in China. ”
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=2
i would like to help the sunbears aswell.