China 'medicine' demand threatens world donkey population: report

NOVEMBER 21, 2019 

Researchers say China's demand for donkey skins threatens the world's donkey population 

China's demand for donkey skins to make a traditional medicine could wipe out more than half the world's donkey population in the next five years, researchers said Thursday. 

Nearly five million skins are used every year to make ejiao, a gel believed in China to be a remedy for troubles ranging from colds to ageing, putting enormous strain on donkey populations around the world, Britain-based animal welfare group Donkey Sanctuary said in a report. 

Ejiao was once the preserve of emperors but is now highly sought after by a burgeoning middle class, with production growing 20 percent each year between 2013 and 2016, Donkey Sanctuary said. 

China's domestic donkey population has collapsed by 76 percent since 1992, and the country imports most of the donkey skins it uses, mainly from traders in South America, Africa and Asia. 

There are currently around 45.8 million donkeys in the world, Donkey Sanctuary said. 

The donkey skin trade has resulted in "suffering on an enormous and unacceptable scale", the group's chief executive Mike Baker said in a statement. 

Researchers documented instances of unhygienic and inhumane processing conditions, including donkeys being crudely bludgeoned on the head at one slaughterhouse in Tanzania while still conscious and restrained. 

At a holding facility in Brazil, malnourished animals were being kept in the same pens as "hundreds of donkey carcasses" that had contaminated the only available water source, "putting remaining donkeys at risk of either infectious disease or severe dehydration". 

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Jaguars killed for fangs to supply growing Chinese medicine trade

Demand from Chinese workers raises demand for skin and body parts of endangered species

Robin McKie, Observer science editor

Sun 4 Mar 2018 07.00 GMT

Conservationists who have uncovered a growing illegal trade in jaguar fangs in South America are linking it to Chinese construction projects that could be threatening wildlife globally.

Experts say major Chinese power plant, road and rail works in developing nations are key stimulants of illicit trade in the skins, bones and horns of endangered animals.

Local people find out that Chinese construction workers have an interest in buying animal bones, horns and body parts for their supposed medical properties and an illicit trade is established. “Essentially, these projects act like giant vacuum cleaners of wildlife that suck everything back to China,” a conservation researcher, Vincent Nijman, of Oxford Brookes University, said last week. “It is a real worry.”

The problem in South America is of particular concern. More than 100 jaguars – a species whose numbers are dwindling – may have been killed in less than a year to supply a trade in their body parts with China. As tiger parts – which are prized by practitioners of Chinese traditional medicine – are becoming scarcer, so a market is opening up for organs from other big cats, including the jaguar.

Two examples of jaguar deaths are given in the current issue of Nature. It reports that on Boxing Day last year, the body of a jaguar was found floating in a drainage canal in Belize in central America.

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The Chinese 'miracle' elixir that threatens donkeys around the world

Chinese demand for donkey gelatine is hammering the Chinese and African donkey populations, putting the price of donkeys out of reach for subsistence farmers

Kimon de Greef

Tuesday 31 October 2017 11.00 GMTLast modified on Tuesday 31 October 2017 13.54 GMT

It was a bout of period pain that led to Liu Yanan’s first taste of donkey gelatine. The 13-year-old was visiting family in Beijing when her cramps started for the first time. Her aunt took out an ornate box filled with smooth chocolate-brown slabs, broke off a small piece, and stirred it into a pot of sweetened rice porridge.

The medicine was ejiao, a Chinese medicine made from donkey skins and used for over 2,500 years. Yanan hesitated before eating the mixture, but she trusted her aunt and wanted relief from the pain. “I felt comfortable afterwards. My body was warm,” she says. “I took it for a month and the trouble went away.”

That was back in 2004, and since then China’s ejiao industry has turned into a global megabusiness. What was once a humble blood tonic for conditions like anemia – a claim supported by no clinical evidence – has been rebranded as a wellness product for China’s ascendant middle class, and now features in face creams, sweets and liqueurs, as well as a wide variety of medicinal preparations. There are claims it will help with anemia and acne, boost your energy, improve your sleep, nourish your yin, prevent cancer, make you look better and even improve your libido. It is billed, in short, as a miracle elixir.

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'Shocking' scale of pangolin smuggling revealed

By Ella Davies

Reporter, BBC Nature

Official records show that pangolins are being illegally traded on a "shocking" scale, according to a report.

The globally threatened animals are sought for their scales which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Annual seizures have been estimated at roughly 10,000 animals but experts warn the illegal trade is far greater

Chinese enforcement officials worked with researchers from the UK to assess the extent of the problem.

 

Pangolins on film

Zhao-Min Zhou, from the Public Security Bureau for Forests in China's Yunnan province, worked with researchers from the University of Oxford to analyse official records of pangolins seized from smugglers.

The findings are published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

"The numbers of pangolins traded are shocking, and all the more so considering the pharmaceutical pointlessness of the trade. This trade is intolerably wasteful," said Prof Macdonald, director of the University of Oxford's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), and a co-author of the paper.

Continued

Cockroach farming is a booming business in China

In recent years, people around the world have spent nearly $40 billion annually on pesticides. And there may be no other insect that bothers the average person more than the cockroach.

But a few Chinese farmers have taken a radically different approach: cultivating millions of cockroaches as part of a profitable business venture. As the Los Angeles Times reports, there are about 100 farms in China, raising more than 10 million cockroaches.

Because the unusual industry is largely unregulated, most cockroach farmers operate somewhat under the radar. They say the Chinese government is aware of their existence and is allowing them to operate freely as long as they don’t become high profile. In other words, they don’t want millions of cockroaches to suddenly flee from local farm, as actually happened in what spectators called “The Great Escape” in August.

Why would someone want to farm cockroaches, an insect that is considered an insufferable pest in most corners of the world?

As it turns out, there’s much more demand for the little critters than some would like to admit. For example, cosmetic companies reportedly use them as a source of protein and for a “cellulose-like substance” on their wings, according to the Times.

And in May, the United Nations itself encouraged more people to consume insects for food, saying they are an inexpensive source of protein and could be a viable solution to world hunger.

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China launches traditional medicine resource center – via Herp Digest

English.news.cn   2012-12-18 20:56:36

             

BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences on Tuesday established a research center for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) resources.

Research results are expected to help government and TCM industry have better understanding of the distribution, production, environmental issues and overexploitation of materials for TCM, which will benefit the protection and sustainable utilization of the medicinal resources.

Wang Guoqiang, vice health minister and director of the State Administration of TCM, said TCM resources have become increasingly scarce due to profit-driven overexploitation, which has wasted and damaged rare medical resources.

He identified a lack of overall planning in exploitation and protection, which should be based on scientific research and survey, as an outstanding problem for the development of TCM.

China last year conducted a nationwide survey of TCM resources, which covered the distribution, production, and natural environment for TCM materials.

Wang said the new center will carefully analyze the survey results to come up with advices to the industry's policy makers.

TCM originated in ancient China and has evolved more than 2,000 years. Practitioners use herbs, acupuncture, massage and other methods to treat a wide range of illnesses. Medicinal plant elements and extracts are largely used. But in some cases animal parts and minerals are also adopted.

Healing Powers of Birds' Nest Soup Remain Mysterious

At as much as $4,500 per pound, edible birds' nests are among the most expensive foods on the planet.

Made from the saliva of cave-dwelling birds called swiftlets, the nests are dangerous to harvest, laborious to prepare and have, according to traditional Chinese medicine, a long list of health benefits.

Traditionally consumed in soup, edible birds' nests are now being turned into food and drink additives as well as put into cosmetics, say two Chinese researchers who have assessed just what is known about the nutritional and medicinal properties of this expensive, and to Westerners, strange-sounding health food.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/21534-edible-birds-nests-health.html

Chinese doctors to call for ‘cruel’ bear farms to be closed

China’s bear farms, where for decades bile has been extracted from the endangered animals in horrific conditions, have been condemned by eminent Chinese scientists.

At a conference in London on Friday, the experts will say there is no justification for the farms because their latest research has shown that that herbal substitutes have greater health benefits than those claimed for bear bile which is used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The rare public criticism of ‘bile farms’ by traditional Chinese medicine experts will be led by Dr Yibin Feng, an associate professor and assistant director at the School of Chinese Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.

He will unveil new research showing that the bears’ suffering on the farms is “unnecessary” and will call for the farms to be closed down.

“Bears are being inhumanely treated and bear farming must end in the near future,” Dr Feng will tell the conference in Westminster.

“Our research provides evidence that other easily available animal bile and plants can be used as bear bile substitutes.”

His conclusions will delight campaigners who for years have fought against the farms and freed hundreds of bears from captivity.

They claim that opposition to the industry is growing as China’s burgeoning middle class become increasingly opposed to such cruelty.

Dr Feng will warn the World Traditional Chinese Medicine Congress conference, however, that opponents face a hard battle with traditionalists who remain convinced that real bear bile can help cure many ailments including stomach and digestive disorders and kidney problems. Many people, including government officials, will refuse to accept substitutes, he will say.

On the farms, the bears - mostly Asiatic black bears - are kept in tiny, cramped cages and milked for their bile through crude holes cut into the abdomen wall and the gall bladder.

The wounds are deliberately left open, leaving the bears exposed to infection and disease. They are kept hungry and denied free access to water because this helps produce more bile.

The farms are still found in many parts of China and other Asian countries, fuelling poaching and illegal trade in the animals.

Dr Feng’s research shows that herbal alternatives and bile from other animals such as cattle - which can be collected cheaply at abbatoirs - can be more effective than bear bile.

He will argue that growing opposition to animal substitutes will mean that, eventually, only plant substitutes will be acceptable. “The final choice will have to be to use plants to substitute bear bile,” he will tell the conference at Central Hall.

“Completely replacing the real one in chemical compositions is really difficult, but it is possible and we are close to proving the reality which is that the pharmacological effects of the substitute are better than those of the real one.”

Animal welfare campaigners point to growing opposition to the farms inside China. Earlier this year the owner of one of the biggest bear bile farms in China - who also owns a large pharmaceutical company - sparked protests in China when he applied for approval to list his company on a stock exchange.

Another speaker at the conference, Toby Zhang, of the charity Animals Asia, said: “There has been a groundswell of public opinion against bear bile farming which shows that the Chinese people are increasingly concerned about animal welfare issues. Now even tradtional medicine doctors are advising against the use of bear bile.”

Jill Robinson, the English founder and chief executive of the charity, which has a sanctuary for rescued bears in China, said: “Bears are dying in droves across the country in conditions that are just as horrendous as they were when we began rescuing bears in 1995. This appalling trade has to end.

“There are over 54 different herbal alternatives and man-made synthetics that can take their place. No one is going to die from a lack of bear bile.”

In December 2009, 19 of China’s mainland provinces committed to becoming bear farm free. Another province, Shandong, closed its last bear farm in 2010.

But there is growing concern that the bear bile trade is still widespread throughout Asia.

The Chinese government estimates that there are currently between 7,000 and 10,000 bears kept for their bile in China. There are an estimated 16,000 Asiatic bears living in the wild.

A report in May by TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, found that poaching and illegal trade of bears, “continues unabated”, and on a large scale, mostly in China, but also in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The most common products on sale were pills and whole bear gall bladders where the bile secreted by the liver is stored.

International trade in the bears, and their parts and derivatives, is prohibited under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The report found that the ban was widely flouted. Domestic trade of bear bile is legal but regulated in China and Japan and illegal in other countries.

Bear bile has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 3,000 years.

Until about 30 years ago, the only way to acquire bear bile was by killing a wild animal and removing its gall bladder. In the early 1980s bear farms began appearing in North Korea and quickly spread to China.

Bears rescued from farms by Animals Asia are found to be suffering from liver cancer, blindness, shattered teeth and ulcerated gums. Contaminated bile from sick bears poses a threat to human health.
The campaign has won support from celebrities including Joanna Lumley, the actress. “Bear farming is a cruel and unnecessary practice,” she said.

“The bears are suffering and dying from liver cancers - and doctors in Asia are now urgently highlighting concerns for those who consume the diseased bile.”

Karen Mok, China’s biggest music star, said: “Animals deserve to live in a world without fear or suffering. We must all help the thousands of bears suffering terrible cruelty.”

Dr Jidong Wu, president of the UK association of traditional chinese medicine at Middlesex university, which prohibits the use of bear bile by its practitioners, said extracting bear bile was “inhumane and unethical” and “against the general principle and law of traditional Chinese medicine which emphasises keeping the balance between mankind and nature.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/laos/7950161/Inside-a-bear-bile-farm-in-Laos.html


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1414897/More-bears-face-torment-on-Chinas-bile-farms.html

By David Harrison
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8727071/Chinese-doctors-to-call-for-cruel-bear-farms-to-be-closed.html