FUZHOU - A Chinese pharmaceutical company Wednesday morning allowed more than 100 reporters to visit a farm where it breeds bears for their bile, amid protests from the public and animal welfare activists.

At the bear farm of Guizhentang Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, based in the eastern province of Fujian, a Xinhua reporter saw about 60 bears roaming outdoors.

A farm worker said more than 600 bears were kept in the farm, with some in the open and others in concrete bungalows covered with wire netting.

The reporter was also allowed to witness the bile extraction process.

A practitioner disinfected the surgical cut in the bear's abdomen, which was confined in a small cage. Then, he inserted an 8-centimeter-long fine tube into the cut, and about 100 milliliters of bile flowed out. Finally, he removed the tube and disinfected the cut again.

The whole process lasted about 30 seconds, during which the bear was consuming liquid food and remained quiet.

The reporter noticed that there were more than 100 cages in the farm used to conduct the operation.

Guizhentang has been under fire for a couple of weeks after it was found to have resumed a plan to go public to expand bile production.

For nearly 3,000 years, bear bile has been used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) to cure eye and liver ailments.

While members of the public and animal welfare advocates have called for eliminating bear bile extraction, some TCM experts defended the industry, citing the "irreplaceable" medical value of bear bile.