Traditional Chinese Medicine and Endangered Animals

October 22nd, 2007

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According to the World Health Organization, nearly 80 percent of the world’s population depends for its primary health care needs on medicines derived from plants and animals. This is especially true in countries where traditional medicines are widely used. Increasingly, however, modern medicines and remedies also contain animal and plant derivatives. Given growing populations, increasing wealth, and the spreading popularity of natural remedies around the world, the demand for these medicines and remedies is rising. The rising demand, combined with reduced habitat, has caused an alarming increase in the number of plant and animal species (used for medicinal purposes) at risk. This article highlights some of the threatened and endangered animal species used in traditional Chinese medicine, the most widely practiced traditional system.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)

TCM is a health care system in which patients are treated with natural plant, animal, and mineral remedies. It assumes, for a person to be healthy, that vital energy or force (qi) must be able to move smoothly through the body and that yin and yang forces (cold and hot; passive and active; and absorbing and penetrating) are in balance. Imbalance causes illness or injury. TCM is all about restoring smooth movement of vital energy and the balance between yin and yang forces in its patients.

TCM’s origins are lost in the mists of time. Shennong, born in the 28th century BCE, according to legend, is credited with compiling a catalogue of 365 species of medicinal plants that became the basis of later herbological studies. Most medical literature, however, is founded on the Neijing (3rd century BCE; “Esoteric classic”), which is still regarded as a great authority. During its centuries of development, TCM spread throughout China and then into Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. It has been a major part of traditional Chinese culture and continues to play an important role in medical treatment in China today.

TCM uses approximately 1,000 plant and 36 animal species, including the tiger, rhinoceros, black bear, musk deer, and sea horse; the tiger, rhinoceros, and sea horse are endangered.

Tiger (Panthera tigris)

In TCM the bones of Panthera tigris have been used in wines, plasters, and manufactured medicines to treat arthritis and other joint ailments. There is little doubt that the trade in tiger bones for medicinal purposes was a major factor behind the tiger conservation crisis of the 1980s and ’90s. Today there are as few as 5,000 to 7,000 tigers in the wild; they are designated as endangered on the 2007 World Conservation Union Red List of Threatened Species. About 5,000 tigers are being raised on farms in China as well.

In 1993, China banned the domestic trade of tiger bones, and TCM removed tiger bone from its official pharmacopoeia. Many TCM practitioners now refuse to use medicines that contain tiger parts, preferring alternative remedies instead. One of the most promising alternatives, according to presenters at The First International Symposium on Endangered Species Used in Traditional East Asian Medicine in Hong Kong in 1997, is the bone of a wild mole rat, Mysospalax baileyi or sailing; other possibilities discussed were the bones of dogs, cows, goats, and other domestic animals. As Elizabeth Call, author of Mending the Web of Life: Chinese Medicine and Species Conservation, stated at another international meeting on traditional medicine in 2006, “the TCM community does not want to be blamed for the extinction of tigers…we support the development of TCM without the use of tiger bone and parts of other highly endangered species of wildlife.”

Surveys in 2006 by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, showed that less than 3 percent of 663 medicine shops and dealers in 26 cities across China claimed to stock tiger bone. Outside China, however, the situation may not be so promising. Back in 1996–97, 43 percent of medicine shops surveyed by TRAFFIC in Chinese communities in North America were still offering tiger bone products for sale; this figure jumped to 50 percent when medicines claiming to contain rhinoceros or leopard products were included.

In June 2007, under pressure from tiger farm owners, China announced a plan to lift its trade ban on parts from farmed tigers. This plan is being opposed by India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Indonesia as well as by tiger conservation groups around the world. If China legalizes trade in parts from farmed tigers, experts agree, the poaching of wild tigers will increase.

Rhinoceros

Decocted rhinoceros horn is used in TCM to treat fever, convulsions, and delirium. Its popularity has been a major factor in the reduction of the rhinoceros population in Africa and Asia. According to the World Wildlife Fund, only about 3,100 black rhinos in Africa and 2,800 of all three Asian species (Sumatran, Javan, and Indian) in Asia still survive. Black, Sumatran, and Javan rhinos are designated as critically endangered on the 2007 World Conservation Union Red List of Threatened Species, the Indian as endangered, and the African White variety as near threatened. Despite protective laws, poaching continues—still motivated by the Asian market for rhinoceros horn. Captive-breeding is now the only hope for some species until protection can be provided in the wild.

Black bear

Bear bile is used in TCM to treat a wide variety of illnesses and injuries, including liver ailments and headaches. Although substitutes for bear bile exist, there is still a huge demand for the real thing. Because of the significant reduction in the population of wild Asiatic black bears that has resulted, bear farming was introduced in China in 1984. On these farms bears are confined to small cages where their bile is extracted through catheters, a painful and sometimes deadly ordeal. According to CNN, more than 7,000 bears are kept on 200 farms in China. Adam M. Roberts, in his Advocacy for Animals article “Bears on the Brink,” reports that bear farming has had no effect on the poaching of wild bears. He calls on the United States, specifically, to pass national legislation to protect bears in this country and to inhibit international trading in bear parts.

Musk deer (Moschus)

Musk from the musk deer is the basis of some 300 TCM prescriptions, of various remedies in Western homeopathic medicine, and of some perfumes. It is used to promote circulation and to treat skin infections and abdominal pain. TRAFFIC reports that China’s demand for musk is estimated at 500–1,000 kilograms per year, which requires the musk glands of at least 100,000 deer. China can no longer meet this demand with its own wild musk deer population. (Worldwide there are only about 700,000 musk deer left in the wild). Farming, which China claims to have success with, and medicinal alternatives may help save the musk deer. The three main alternatives under consideration in China, according to presenters at the international symposium in Hong Kong referred to above, are the muskrat, two species of civet, and synthetic materials. The implications of harvesting large numbers of these animals for medicinal purposes, however, have not been fully explored.

Seahorse (Hippocampus kelloggi)

The seahorse, used as a treatment for kidney ailments, circulatory problems, and impotence, has been a feature of TCM for centuries. In fact, it was mentioned in the famous work Bencao gangmu (1578; “Great Pharmacopoeia”), a description of nearly 2,000 drugs. Today approximately 90 health and medicine products containing seahorses are sold in China and elsewhere.

Thirty-two countries and regions are involved in harvesting some 20,000,000 seahorses each year; yet production already is failing to meet a worldwide demand that had reached 500 tons annually by the beginning of the 21st century. China’s demand alone was 200–250 tons per year, 95 percent of which had to be imported. The rising demand, according to the World Nature Foundation, had resulted, already in 1996, in the reduction of populations of the known 35 varieties of seahorses by more than half. Currently the seahorse is not listed as endangered and there are no international regulations on trade, a tragedy in the making.

Efforts to promote seahorse farming, tried and abandoned in the past, are underway again. China’s Hainan province, whose coastal areas near Yaxian (called Sanya locally) provide ideal living conditions for the seahorse, is making significant investments in seahorse farming. Meanwhile the harvesting of wild seahorses goes on.

Outlook

Although the use of animal parts in TCM is deeply engrained and such practices are slow to change, dialogue between conservationists and TCM practitioners is underway. The Third International Congress of Traditional Medicine, held in Toronto in September 2006, is one example of this. Sponsored by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Congress was organized around the belief that the ecosystems on which TCM was built must be preserved.

This is hopeful, as is the development of farming and alternative ingredients. But they cannot replace constant and aggressive vigilance against poachers of endangered species who continue their illegal activity. Because poaching can be as lucrative as the narcotics trade, offenders are often willing to take great risks to be involved. Regulations, where lacking, must be put in place, and enforcement by governments and international agencies must be swift. Most important, TCM practitioners and patients must continue to reject remedies that contain parts of endangered and protected animals.

Images: Seized pelts and bones from poached tigers on display, Nepal (D. Champaign—Wildlife Conservation Nepal, HO/AP); black rhinoceros (Staffan Widstrand/Corbis); black bears in cages in a Chinese bear farm (World Society for the Protection of Animals); seahorses in a traditional Chinese medicine shop, Taipei, Taiwan (James Marshall/Corbis)

To Learn More

• Born Free/USA Dedicated to keeping wildlife in the wild
• WWF initiatives on endangered animals
• TRAFFIC the wildlife trade monitoring network

How Can I Help?

• Become a friend of TRAFFIC the wildlife trade monitoring network
• Donate or submit ideas to Save the Tiger Fund a program of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation