After China bear-bile producer Gui Zhen Tang recently sparked a storm of public criticism following media reports of the means used by the company to extract bile from bears, and then won approval to list on the Shenzhen stock exchange, the company’s Shenzhen branch on Bao’an Rd. in Luohu district was targeted by animal rights activists this past weekend, reports Southern Metropolis Daily.

Most of the animal rights defenders wore black bear-shaped masks, handing out photos of ‘bile bears’ to passersby outside Gui Zhen Tang’s office. Their cause, widely supported by the public, is to stop the bile-extraction-through-torture, a practice they say also damages the reputation of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

One of protesters, dressed up as black bear, portrayed the whole process of how bile is extracted from live bears: crawling on the ground while green ribbons—as a symbol of bear bile, were continuously “extracted” from his “gall bladder” by others involved.

Many local Chinese medicine doctors also reject the use of bear bile as an anti-inflammatory drug or to treat gall stones and liver ailments, saying “other ingredients can be used to completely replace [bear bile].”

      
The newspaper also reports that a heckler soon appeared and tried to refute the animal rights activists, but his voice was quickly drowned out.

See more photos from the protest here.