Canada has begun using a new weapon to curb the trade in rare and endangered animals.

The device allows officials to test suspicious goods on the spot to determine whether they have been prepared using ingredients from rare species.

The test -- which works in a similar way to a pregnancy test -- was developed with British DNA forensics specialists to combat the use of tissues from protected animals, especially bears, in traditional medicines, which make up a lucrative market in Asia.

The procedure reveals whether goods contain ingredients from species protected under international trade laws by detecting specific proteins found in the animals.

Trials of the test kit in Australia and Canada have identified 16 cases where illegal products were bound for the market. It was officially launched at the UN Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)\ this month. One area where the kits will be used extensively is to test for products from China that are made from bear bile which are being illegally imported and sold in Canada.

Investigations by the  World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) show that bear farms in China are a primary source, and WSPA has teamed up with Environment Canada’s Wildlife Enforcement Directorate to test the detection kits that will help to stem this illegal bear trade.

Cage to Consumer, a new WSPA report shows that Traditional Asian Medicine shops in eight countries - Canada, USA, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand - offered bear bile and bear gall products for sale and that most of these products originated from China’s bear farms. “WSPA’s investigations confirm what we suspected” says Peter Davies, Director General of WSPA. “These results show that bear farms are giving rise to illegal trade as well as being inherently cruel. In light of this evidence we urge the Chinese Government to reconsider its position on bear farming and instigate a phase-out of the bear farming industry in China.”

The bear detection kits are being field-tested over a six to twelve-month period by Environment Canada’s Wildlife Enforcement Directorate and will help identify and stamp out the illegal trade in bear products.

Bear bile and bear gall have long been used by consumers of Traditional Asian Medicine. Since the 1980s bile has been extracted from live bears kept on bear farms to create such products.

Today, at least 12,000 bears in China, Korea and Vietnam are kept in appalling conditions, in cages no bigger than a telephone booth turned on its side, while subjected to painful bile extraction procedures. The extraction of bile is unnecessary as there are many effective alternatives that can be used in place of bear bile.

All eight species of bear are protected under international law. Some, such as the Asiatic black bear and brown bear found in China and elsewhere, are illegal to export or import under any circumstances, while others can only be sold across borders under tight restrictions. Consumption of bear bile has risen in China since the farms were introduced in the early 1980s, from about 50kg annually to 4,000kg in 1998.

Bears kept in captivity are wounded in the abdomen and fitted with a tube to extract bile from their gall bladders.