Donkey Crisis

[PlumDragon]

Fun topic...Heres some more:

Chan Su -- Toad Venom Cake

Feng Fang -- Hornets Nest

Snakes were mentioned, and of course, She Tui (Skin Shedding)

Zi He Che -- Human Placenta

Ge Jie -- Geckos

E Jiao -- Donkey Hide Glue

Hai Shen -- Sea Cucumber

Various bones, tendons, and other parts from a variety of animals.

[chusauli]

E Jiao (Donkey Gelatin)
Lu Jiao Jiao (Deer Horn Gelatin)
Bie Jia (Softshell turtle shell)
Gui Ban (Turtle shell)
Chan Su (Toad Poison)

All good stuff!

BTW, Wu Ling Zhi is Flying squirrel poop, not Bat poop.

Cordyceps is the bomb! Great for Lung Cancer, TB - stops bleeding in the lungs! Also good for improving Lung Capacity for aerobic endeavors. Expensive but great! Gene, try it in powdered form from Mayway Corp. It will save lives!

BTW, not all acupuncturists use prescribed memorized points...only the beginners do that. There is a real art and science to acupuncture.

[sanjuro_ronin]

E Jiao (Donkey Gelatin)
Lu Jiao Jiao (Deer Horn Gelatin)
Bie Jia (Softshell turtle shell)
Gui Ban (Turtle shell)
Chan Su (Toad Poison)

All good stuff!

BTW, Wu Ling Zhi is Flying squirrel poop, not Bat poop.

Cordyceps is the bomb! Great for Lung Cancer, TB - stops bleeding in the lungs! Also good for improving Lung Capacity for aerobic endeavors. Expensive but great! Gene, try it in powdered form from Mayway Corp. It will save lives!

BTW, not all acupuncturists use prescribed memorized points...only the beginners do that. There is a real art and science to acupuncture.

Robert, how safe is cordyceps ?

[GeneChing]

Donkeys aren't all that weird, but Donkey hide jello is.

Donkey hide jello just sounds wrong.

South Africa: Donkeys Smuggled From SA to China for Medicine


Photo: Daily News
(file photo).

By Kimon De Greef

A Johannesburg businessman was arrested this week after falsely declaring a shipment of 300 donkey hides at OR Tambo airport. Investigators suspect that the man, a Chinese national, is the leader of a local donkey smuggling ring.

Gelatin from donkey hides is used to manufacture a traditional Chinese medicine called ejiao. Prescribed for treating anaemia, sleeplessness and excessive menstrual bleeding, among other ailments, ejiao sells for up to R5,000 per kg. (Though clinical evidence for these treatments is lacking, a small peer-reviewed study suggests ejiao may be effective for treating anaemia.)

Surging demand and a shortage of donkeys in China have led, in the last few years, to the unprecedented emergence of a global donkey market, with reports of large-scale trade across Africa. According to Grace de Lange from the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) Farm Animal Protection Unit, donkey prices in South Africa have increased more than fourfold in the last two years.

The trade, though not technically illegal, is poorly regulated, and has drawn condemnation from welfare groups following reports of donkeys being slaughtered inhumanely. "Donkeys are the latest victims of the trade in animal parts 'for medicinal purposes' to the Far East," wrote the NSPCA in a statement last September, when news of the trade first broke.

South Africa's Animal Protection Act forbids cruelty towards animals. According to Mpho Mokoena, an inspector in the NSPCA's Farm Animal Protection Unit, large numbers of donkeys have been slaughtered using knives and hammers in rural parts of Limpopo, the Northern Cape, and North West Province. "It's extremely upsetting to see the remains," Mokoena said.

In an incident last October SPCA officials intercepted a flatbed truck carrying 41 "crushed, dead or dying" donkeys in Limpopo. Four foreign African men were sentenced to 8 months in jail.

The confiscation at O.R. Tambo took place on 15 February after customs officials noticed a foul smell emanating from 39 boxes labeled 'cladding'. The boxes were destined for Hong Kong.

Four days later police raided a farm in Randfontein, confiscating more than 1,000 skins. The premises had been rented by the same man whose fraudulent shipment was blocked. (Police have not yet released the man's name, which is known to GroundUp, and did not respond to questions in time for publication.)

"Government is starting to take the illegal skins issue seriously," said Ashley Ness from the Highveld Horse Care Unit (HHCU), a welfare nonprofit that has been monitoring the trade. "Hopefully this will lead to more arrests."

Separately, the North West Department of Rural, Environmental and Agricultural Development (READ) announced on Tuesday that it was embarking on a formal "donkey production program", investing in farms and equine abattoirs for meeting Chinese demand. Provincial representatives signed a memorandum of understanding with China last year.

"The spike in donkey hide demand around the world means that donkeys and donkey products are an agricultural commodity and will contribute to [growth] in the province," the department wrote in a statement. "The Department strongly condemns ... illegal trade of [donkey] hides and meat."

But Ness, from the HHCU, feared that these initiatives would lead to further animal abuse. "Who's going to monitor the facilities? There's a risk that this will cause more welfare issues."

The HCCU launched a petition the same day calling for an end to all donkey slaughter in South Africa. By Friday afternoon it had drawn nearly 500 signatures.

Gumtree South Africa announced on Friday that is was prohibiting all sales of donkeys and donkey skins on its platform. "We decided that extreme measures would be necessary to prevent further unsavoury practises," spokesperson Claire Cobbledick said.

[herb ox]

E jiao - aka "a$$ hide glue" kid you not!

Works wonders for restoring blood loss after giving birth, and stopping hemorrhage. Good for "gluing" a "slippery fetus" (i.e. fetus developing in a "prone to miscarry" mother) into place.

h. ox

[GeneChing]

I don't mean you personally, herb ox. Do you stock and prescribe ejiao?

CHINESE MEDICINE IS USING DONKEY SKINS TO BOOST LIBIDO—AND AFRICA’S ANIMALS ARE AT RISK
BY CONOR GAFFEY ON 6/14/17 AT 9:43 AM
CLOSE

Demand for a form of traditional Chinese medicine is putting the donkey population at risk in South Africa and other parts of the continent.

In recent years, the market in ejiao—a product made from boiled-down donkey skins mixed with herbs and other ingredients—has grown massively in China, putting millions of donkeys at risk of slaughter or poaching.

In South Africa, poor farmers who rely on donkeys as beasts of burden and modes of transport have reported having their animals stolen, only to later find their skinless carcasses.

South Africa’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has confiscated more than 1,000 donkey hides en route to China in the past year, chief inspect Mpho Mokoena told Voice of America (VOA). Mokoena fears that the growing trade in donkey skins could signal the extinction of the animal in South Africa. “In two years there won’t be [any] donkeys in South Africa,” she told VOA.


Donkey skins dry in the sun at a licensed specialized slaughterhouse in Baringo, Kenya, on February 28. The trade in donkey skins is legal in some countries, but is putting donkey populations in parts of Africa at risk.
TONY KARUMBA/AFP/GETTY

The slaughter of donkeys and trade in their skins is on an upward trend in other parts of Africa, too. A January report by U.K.-based charity the Donkey Sanctuary found that demand for donkeys in Africa has risen so much that, in the West African country of Burkina Faso, the cost of a single animal almost doubled from £60 ($76) in 2014 to £108 ($137) in 2016.

The global donkey population stands at around 44 million, the vast majority of which are working animals, but the Donkey Sanctuary report estimated that global demand for donkey skins is between 4-10 million, with at least 1.8 million donkey skins being traded per year.

Four African countries—Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal—have banned donkey exports, as well as Pakistan. The consumption of donkey meat is also considered haram (forbidden) in Islam, meaning that the slaughter of donkeys in many countries with large Muslim populations is frowned upon.

Donkeys are under threat largely due to the rise in popularity of ejiao, according to the report. In China, some believe that ejiao has various health benefits, from anti-aging properties to boosting sex drive, and it is even marketed as a gynecological treatment that can reduce reproductive diseases in women. Demand is so high that ejiao can sell for up to £300 ($382) per kilogram, according to the Donkey Sanctuary report.

Traditional medicine in China and other parts of East Asia is associated with the decline of other animal populations and wildlife agencies have said that wild rhinoceros could be wiped out within a decade as a result of increased poaching. Rhino horn can sell for up to $60,000 per kilogram—more valuable by weight than gold or diamonds—due to myths that it can solve a wide range of medical ailments, including cancer and hangovers.

Tiger bones are also reputed to be a remedy for arthritis in traditional medicine, while ivory from elephant tusks is also used in some medications, as well as being prized for ornamental purposes in China.

[GeneChing]

Plus I caught this on the radio last Sunday:

Amid Growing Threats, Donkey Rescuers Protect The Misunderstood Beasts Of Burden
June 18, 2017 7:29 AM ET
JOHN BURNETT


Mark Meyers is the founder of Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue in San Angelo, Texas. His sanctuaries protect some 3,000 animals, making it the largest donkey defense organization in the world.
John Burnett/NPR

Donkeys have been loyal beasts of burden for 5,000 years, yet they still don't get a lot of respect.

In the wild, burro herds are a nuisance. In captivity, they can be mistreated. But in recent years, donkey sanctuaries have sprung up across the country. The largest among them is Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, outside of San Angelo, Texas, where the air periodically erupts with the unpeaceable sounds of donkey braying.

Just like its hee-haw, so much about the donkey is species specific. Their temperament — intelligent, cautious and playful — is unique in the equine world. Males and females are called jacks and jennies. And they're widely misunderstood.

"[People] assume they're stubborn. They assume they're stupid," says Mark Meyers, the founder and executive director of Peaceful Valley. "So there's a very negative connotation out there, the Bugs Bunny — turn into a donkey when he does something stupid."

Meyers has become America's foremost donkey defender.

Bored with the electrical contracting business, he and his wife, Amy, began adopting abused and unwanted donkeys at their ranchette outside Los Angeles. By 2005, they had accumulated 25 animals, and he decided to sell his companies and protect donkeys full time. They moved out to hot, flat, west Texas seven years ago.

When Meyers — a burly, white-bearded Buddhist — walks into a pen, he's mobbed by love-hungry donkeys.

"These donkeys here are some of our ambassador donkeys," he says, patting two affectionate beasts named Buddy and Houdini. "We do public outreach with them. We're headed to the Topeka Zoo in a few weeks to show the people how cool donkeys can be."

At any given time, his paddocks are home to 1,000 donkeys. Together with a network of sanctuaries scattered around the country, Peaceful Valley has grown into the largest donkey rescue organization in the world — sheltering some 3,000 total animals. Half are wild burros removed from public lands; half were abandoned, abused or neglected.

But the idea is not to run a home for old donkeys; the idea is to find them new homes. The ranch gives up more than 400 donkeys a year for adoption because their new owners say they make great pets.

"Like a really smart dog"


Melissa Schurr, with her 21-year-old jack donkey, Buckaroo, at a ranch near Sacramento, Calif. She says donkeys are like dogs, for their intelligence, loyalty and playfulness.
John Burnett/NPR

"Hi, Buck ... you want a cookie?" calls out Melissa Schurr in a singsong voice. The equine dentist approaches her 21-year-old spotted jack, Buckaroo, on the ranch where they live outside of Sacramento, Calif.

Meyers helped her adopt Buckaroo, who was a wild ass in western Arizona in his youth.

"Donkeys are very dog-like creatures. They're loyal, they're sweet. It's like a really smart dog — a border collie — and the best horse you ever had, wrapped up in one animal," Schurr says.

"We've had to change how we shut our gates. He'll watch you and figure out how to open gates," she adds, rubbing the insides of Buckaroo's ears. In response, he closes his eyes and nuzzles her shoulder. "We have to latch everything. You can't just tie it. He'll untie it. They're very smart."

The Bureau of Land Management estimates there are more than 13,000 wild burros on public lands in five Western states — but thousands more are uncounted. (Some semantics: donkeys are domesticated; burros are wild.)

Feral populations can become a nuisance. Burros foul springs, overgraze, trample the ground and drive away native species.

Kevin Goode, a special assistant at Texas Parks & Wildlife, says in the outback, burros are wild.

"They are very skittish," Goode says. "They are very aggressive, both towards humans and other animals. They don't play well with others."

In the old days, people shot bothersome burros. Today, land managers typically tolerate them until the herd gets so big it has to be removed or culled. Captured wild burros then have to be gentled up before they can be adopted.

Later this month, Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue will send trailers, wranglers and herding dogs to Ajo, Ariz., to round up some 500 donkeys that have wandered over from Mexico onto public grazing land. Crossing the border may have saved their lives.

The U.K.-based animal rights group Donkey Sanctuary reports that Mexico is one of 21 countries that slaughters donkeys and exports their hides to China, which uses them to make a popular traditional medicine.

"Quite simply, supply has not kept up with demand," says Donkey Sanctuary campaigns manager Simon Pope. "Wild populations of donkeys around the world are being looked at and sized up as potential supplies to feed into this trade."


Donkeys with "kill tags," wait in export pens in Eagle Pass, Texas, destined for slaughterhouses in Mexico. Chinese are buying up donkey skins around the world to use in making traditional medicine.
Julie Caramonte/Equine Welfare Alliance and Wild Horse Freedom Foundation

Mark Meyers and other animal rights activists report that more donkeys and burros are being sold to "kill buyers" in the U.S., and exported to Mexican slaughterhouses to feed the insatiable global skin market.

"China has increased the demand for donkey hides to 4 million a year," he says. "They've decimated their own donkey herds. They've decimated several African nations' donkey herds. So now they're turning to South America and Mexico."

So the people at Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue believe their work is more urgent than ever.

If there's more, I'll split this into its own indie thread.

[GeneChing]

This has become enough of an issue that I'm copying the posts off our Weird stuff in TCM List it! thread and creating an indie Donkey Crisis thread.

Donkey forum in China to address thinning herd as demand for skins soars
Donkey skins are used in traditional Chinese medicines touted as sex, beauty or longevity aids
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 15 August, 2017, 6:42pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 15 August, 2017, 11:21pm



Sidney Leng
sidney.leng@scmp.com
http://twitter.com/SidneyLeng

All eyes and ears in the donkey world will be focused on the rural Chinese backwater of Donge county in Shandong province this week as dozens of international researchers meet to address the country’s growing appetite for the animal.
Donkeys are big business in China where their skins are boiled for gelatin used in various traditional Chinese medicines touted either as sex, beauty or longevity aids.
China’s demand for donkey skin is so great that it is endangering donkey populations worldwide.
According to one estimate, China had 11 million donkeys in the 1990s. Now it’s down to about six million. The gap between supply and demand has forced Chinese factories to import donkey skins from other parts of the world.
On average, about four million donkeys, half outside China, are killed every year to be skinned and turned into powders, tablets and face creams.
Demand for traditional Chinese medicine fuelling rising slaughter of donkeys in Africa



Dong-E-E-Jiao, the country’s biggest maker of a donkey-skin medicine, is hosting the three-day conference, which started on Tuesday and is being covered live by Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily and state television.
Two donkeys are pictured in front a donkey meat restaurant in Hangzhou city, east China's Zhejiang province, on Nov. 12, 2014. The restaurant used these two donkeys to let customers believe that the meat dishes in their restaurant is authentic donkey meat. (Imaginechina)
Dong-E-E-Jiao chairman Qin Yufeng said China led the world in the donkey industry and was willing to shoulder more of the burden to find solutions to its problems.
Qin said an international fund would be set up during the conference to usher in a “new era of technology and innovation” for the business of breeding and slaughtering donkeys.
The company also said it was hitching a ride on the “Belt and Road Initiative” to lead the global donkey industry.
Chinese health fad that’s decimating donkey populations worldwide
The company’s stock price has doubled on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in the last three years, with sales in the first half of 2017 rising to 2.93 billion yuan (US$439 million) from 2.67 billion yuan a year earlier.
According to the Qilu Evening News, conference organisers said the industry needed to harness the value of every animal.


Photo taken on June 30, 2017 shows Tibetan wild donkeys in Hoh Xil of northwest China's Qinghai Province. (Xinhua)

“China is working hard to explore the maximum value of each donkey – it is closely connected with the country’s economic development,” organisers were quoted as saying.
Opening the conference, Ren Xiaowang, deputy mayor of Liaocheng, which administers the county, said authorities in Shandong offered incentives to support the industry, with subsidies ranging from 1,200 yuan for one donkey to up to 300,000 yuan for 1,000 donkeys.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as:
Thinning herd on agenda for world’s top donkey minds

[GeneChing]

Rush for Donkey Skins in China Draws Wildlife Traffickers
In high demand for traditional medicine, donkey skins have become a hot commodity on the black market.


Donkey skins are in demand in China to make a traditional remedy, but as the country faces a donkey shortage, it increasingly imports skins from abroad. Here, a worker in a licensed donkey slaughterhouse in Kenya takes a skin to be cured.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY KARUMBA, AFP/GETTY

By Kimon de Greef
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 22, 2017

In an animal rescue career spanning 27 years, it was the worst case South African SPCA inspector Reinet Meyer had ever encountered.

Corralled on a smallholding outside Bloemfontein, a city in South Africa’s arid interior, 70 donkeys nosed through trash piles for food or flopped in the dirt, too debilitated to stand. According to a farmhand guarding the property, they’d gone a week without sustenance—his boss, the man said, cared only about their skins and hadn’t even given them water. Ten of the animals had already died.

Behind the house, stretched flat on a low metal roof, donkey skins were drying in the sun. Two donkeys had been skinned that morning.

Donkey skins are the basis of a Chinese traditional remedy called ejiao, which is used for treating a range of blood conditions and, increasingly, as a general wellness product. During the past decade skins have surged in value—fetching up to $400 each—as China’s donkey population has dwindled. The result is an unprecedented global trade, much of it illicit.

Meyer hadn’t known about the donkey skin industry when she examined that herd in June 2016. She’d been tipped off by members of the Highveld Horse Care Unit, an equine welfare group.


Six African countries have closed slaughterhouses in an attempt to stem the flow of skins abroad, but others, such as the one pictured here, continue to operate on a large scale.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY KARUMBA, AFP/GETTY

The donkeys “had begun eating cardboard and bark from desperation,” Meyer says. “Many had deformed hoofs and were infected with herpes. Several mothers had aborted their pregnancies from stress. We found at least 19 fetuses, but counting was difficult—they were small and had started decomposing.”

The animals were euthanized the next day, after a vet declared them too weak to save. By then this animal cruelty case had morphed into a wildlife trafficking investigation, sparked by the discovery of gas burners and giant pots in a filthy outbuilding. The equipment, which Meyer had first guessed was for cooking donkey meat, was being used to process abalone, a marine shellfish smuggled by the ton from South Africa to China each year.

“We weren’t thinking about abalone poaching in Bloemfontein,” she says. “That stuff happens at the coast.”

But illicit supply chains cross borders and involve diverse products, driven by the steep margins of the black market. With demand for donkey skins rising sharply in China, wildlife traffickers have begun moving into the trade.

Chinese ejiao producers, concentrated in the remote eastern province of Shandong, consume more than four million donkey skins annually, extracting gelatin according to recipes that date back 2,500 years. Traditionally considered a blood tonic for treating ailments like anemia, ejiao was rebranded as a consumer item in the 1990s, ramping up prices and sales. Products derived from it today include face creams, liqueurs, and sweets.


Workers hold uncured donkey skins at a licensed slaughterhouse in Kenya. In recent years, Africa has begin shipping many more skins to China.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY KARUMBA, AFP/GETTY

During the same period, China’s donkey population shrank from 11 million to less than 6 million. Confronted with shortages, manufacturers have become increasingly dependent on skins from abroad.

The bulk of the imports come from developing countries where donkeys have historically been cheap, transforming the animals into coveted agricultural commodities. In Niger the average price of a donkey climbed from $34 to $145 between 2012 and 2016. In Kenya prices have more than doubled since February 2017.

This sudden inflation has priced out farmers who rely on donkeys as pack animals, and in some places for food, while the volume of skins sold—80,000 in just nine months in Niger last year, for instance—has raised fears of local donkey extinctions.

To prevent that, since 2016 six African governments have banned donkey skin exports, and six more have shuttered donkey slaughterhouses. But these measures have largely failed to stem the flow of skins and instead have driven large portions of the trade underground.

“All these countries that have taken a stand are still facing massive illegal or unregulated exports,” says Alex Mayers, of the Donkey Sanctuary, a U.K.-based welfare group that reported on the trade earlier this year. "Sourcing is happening in all sorts of creative ways.”

A NEW TARGET FOR WILDLIFE TRAFFICKERS
While destined for different markets, shipments of donkey skins present similar logistical challenges to other contraband, placing their handling and transport to Asia within the arc of wildlife traffickers and other groups accustomed to evading the law.


Workers prepare to cure a hide at a licensed slaughterhouse in Kenya. The closure of slaughterhouses in other countries, and rising demand for skins, is spurring underground trade.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY KARUMBA, AFP/GETTY

“We’ve been keeping a close watch on the wildlife crime element,” Mayers says. “There are many rumors, but proving the connection has been difficult.”

Cases like the Bloemfontein raid help connect the dots. Dried abalone, a status food that can sell for more than $90 per pound in China, forms the nucleus of a criminal economy worth millions each year in South Africa, with documented links to money laundering and the drug trade.

Police confiscated fewer than two dozen dried abalone from the Bloemfontein property, a tiny haul given that illicit exports from the country exceed 2,000 tons annually, equivalent to some 500,000 shellfish. But the find added credence to suspicions that donkey skins have been shifting onto the black market.

Further corroboration came in May 2017, when officials seized more than 800 donkey skins from a farm outside Johannesburg. Stashed among bales of donkey hides, they found seven tiger skins, considered a status symbol in China. “The skins were still bloody, like they’d been processed a few days earlier,” said Grace de Lange, an inspector with the SPCA. South Africa has no native tigers, though several hundred are kept in captivity, and trading their parts is weakly regulated.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Donkey skins dry in the sun while a donkey looks on from the shade of a tree at a licensed slaughterhouse in Kenya. In South Africa, on the other hand, most of the donkey skin trade has gone underground, with skins being bought and smuggled by wildlife traffickers.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY KARUMBA, AFP/GETTY

At present it’s legal to export up to 7,300 donkey skins a year from South Africa. Meat safety regulations require donkeys to be slaughtered in approved equine abattoirs, and only one such slaughterhouse is now operating, with a license to process 20 donkeys a day. (Authorities recently shut down two other slaughterhouses for failing to comply with regulations.)

And yet a single export firm, Anatic Trading, investigated by police in Johannesburg this year, traded more than 15,000 donkey skins in an eight-month period from July 2016 to May 2017, exceeding the entire country’s annual legal limit at the time by some 5,000 skins.

“Aside from the animal cruelty issues, we’re concerned that these skins could be used to hide other goods,” says Ockie Fourie, a captain with the Stock Theft Unit of the South African Police Service.

This has already been documented in other countries: Police recently apprehended traffickers using donkey skins to smuggle cocaine in Bolivia and Colombia, while the Taliban is believed to have used donkey skins to conceal land mines in Afghanistan.


Skins at a licensed slaughterhouse are packed for export. They’ll be boiled to produce a gelatin that’s a key ingredient in ejiao, a traditional Chinese medicine to treat blood conditions.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY KARUMBA, AFP/GETTY

The lucrative returns in the ejiao industry, in addition to the utility of skins for disguising illicit shipments, appear to be attracting wildlife traffickers in Africa, especially as governments clamp down on the legal donkey trade.

According to one exporter in Kenya, interviewed via WhatsApp on condition of anonymity, Chinese buyers pay $48 per skin. That’s equivalent to about $130,000 for a standard 40-foot-long shipping container full of skins, excluding shipping costs..

“The Chinese partners who introduced me to donkey skins in 2015 told me they were selling like hot cakes,” said the exporter, a Congolese man who lived in China for six years. “Business is going very well.”

The Donkey Sanctuary has identified firms in Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon that advertise donkey skins alongside endangered pangolins, whose international trade is forbidden under CITES.

“To move any illegal product, you need strong social and trade networks,” says Annette Hübschle, a researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Institute for Safety Governance and Criminology. “It’s essential for smugglers to enter into trusting relationships with people further along the supply chain or disguise their products’ illegal status.”


In the 1990s ejiao was rebranded as a consumer item and beauty product, causing sales—and demand for donkey skins—to skyrocket.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY KARUMBA, AFP/GETTY

Hübschle adds, “Due to our reliance on crime reports and limited seizure data, it’s difficult to assess the true level of convergence between wildlife trades. Often, fluid interfaces with legal markets are just as important.” By this she means that traffickers commonly move illicit products using front companies and other legal channels.

Several donkey skin companies in Africa have already been linked to donkey theft and illicit slaughtering. One firm based in Zimbabwe was recently fingered for buying thousands of skins in Botswana and shipping them to China via Mozambique. A recent investigation revealed that Kenyan slaughterhouses were sourcing donkeys from several neighboring countries, with “rife” cross-border smuggling.

Traffickers will be paying attention to these reports, which indicate untapped opportunities in the ejiao sector. “An abalone buyer I know started buying donkey skins last year,” says a former member of South Africa’s Chinese mafia, the underworld group that controls the illegal abalone trade. “He’s been involved in everything before, from prostitution to selling leopard skins and lion paws. But donkey skins are basically legal. Really, it’s easy money.”

This story was supported by a grant from the Africa-China Reporting Project, managed by the Journalism Department of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Kimon de Greef is a freelance journalist from Cape Town. He reports widely on illicit trades and is currently writing a book on abalone poaching in South Africa. Follow him on Twitter.

Imagine the stench of an African Donkey slaughterhouse...

[GeneChing]

Bashed with sledgehammers and left to die: Donkeys horrifically killed in Chinese abattoirs to make traditional medicine used to improve BLOOD circulation
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Millions of donkeys brutally slaughtered in China to make traditional medicine
They are bashed in the head with sledgehammers and left to bleed to death
Before death they suffer in squalid conditions with disease and malnutrition
Australia considering exporting live donkeys to these same abattoirs
By Nic White For Daily Mail Australia
PUBLISHED: 00:43 EST, 23 November 2017 | UPDATED: 06:36 EST, 23 November 2017

Horrific footage shows donkeys being brutally slaughtered before they are skinned to make Chinese medicine.

The animals were seen being bashed on the head with a sledgehammer before being stabbed and left to slowly bleed to death on a concrete floor.

One donkey even continued to move after a failed attempt to kill it with a blow to the head, making its last moments agonising.

Barbaric treatment of donkeys killed for their skin in China


Horrific footage shows defenceless donkeys being brutally slaughtered to make Chinese medicine by being bashed on the head with a sledgehammer


They are stabbed and left to slowly bleed to death on a concrete floor

Chinese abattoirs slaughter 11 million donkeys a year as their skins is used to make ejiao, a traditional medicine believed to improve blood circulation.

They are kept in squalid conditions crammed into tiny pens where they were observed standing in their own faeces and urine.

'Some were so malnourished, injured, or ill that they were unable to walk. The only water available to them was dirty and green with algae,' according to PETA.

'One donkey was so malnourished that his ribs stuck out. Another was so sick that he couldn't walk, so he was dumped into the bucket of a tractor and hauled away.'

The animal rights group said workers told its undercover observers they were concerned environmental inspectors would fine them or shut them down.

Before they arrived, donkeys were sold in crowded open-air markets with the sun beating down on them for hours.

'Terrified donkeys were beaten with sticks, including one who was hit and screamed at when she attempted to escape through a gate that was left open,' PETA claimed.


They are kept in squalid conditions crammed into tiny pens where they were observed standing in their own faeces and urine

The footage prompted animal welfare organisations to demand Australia ban live exports to China, as horses, pigs, and cows were being slaughtered to make fake ejiao to meet huge demand.

As supply became scarce in China, manufacturers were looking to Australia for a new source of donkeys.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce declared donkey skin a big export opportunity for the country.

'The export of donkey meat, I know it's not a big seller in Australian restaurants, but it is a big seller in China,' he said during trade talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in March.


Animal rights group PETA said workers told its undercover observers they were concerned environmental inspectors would fine them or shut them down

'You've got to understand the cultural requirements. If people want edible donkey skins, Australia is going to provide them.

'We're going to make sure if you want to eat donkey skins, you're going to eat our edible donkey skins.'

Mr Joyce said Chinese companies made inquiries to the Northern Territory government about farms there providing them with donkeys.

Dozens of donkeys were also near-abandoned on a farm near Adelaide after a lucrative trade deal with China fell through, according to Today Tonight.

Neighbours to the Mount Compass property said they were malnourished, fed hay, which they don't usually eat, and drank from muddy ponds.

Nine of the animals had to be put down, but the frustrated local couldn't do anything about it because the farm didn't break any laws.


Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce declared donkey skin a big export opportunity for Australia during trade talks in March

Humane Society animal welfare manager Georgie Dolphin said the farm was a 'shocking case of neglect' but not an isolated incident.

'If donkey farms are being established by foreign investors in order to fuel the demand for the animals' hides in China, this could create serious animal welfare issues both in Australia and around the world,' he said.

'Australia should not be involved in exporting any donkeys to China for this vicious trade.'

Slaughter houses are always harsh. I figured this sort of sums up a Monday back-to-work after T-day.

[David Jamieson]

I worked in an abattoir for a time.
Somehow, I still like eating meat.
This fate awaits millions upon millions of animals every year though.
We eat horses, we eat cattle, we eat...well, we eat most everything when it gets right to it.

I don't think humanity will get better. I think that perhaps we are long past our best before date.
Sorry if that seems dim and pessimistic, but as I go backwards through time in my mind, we really are only getting worse in our behaviours towards the consumption of this world and we have most definitely lost touch with communion with the divine in a great many regards.

We peaked when the Buddha died and we've been going downhill since.

This is of course, just my opinion. I do work at being a good person anyway.

[GeneChing]

Donkeys stolen, skinned in Africa to feed Chinese demand
By SAM MCNEIL AND TOM ODULA, ASSOCIATED PRESS NAIROBI, Kenya — Jun 14, 2018, 11:46 PM ET


In this May 14, 2018, photo, donkeys raised by subcontractors of the world's largest donkey skin gel producer await for lunch in the city of Dong'e in eastern China's Shandong province. Growing hunger for the gel, known as "ejiao" in Chinese and believed to have medicinal properties, has greatly depleted donkey populations in China and pushed buyers to source skins abroad. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

Dawn was just beginning to break when Joseph Kamonjo Kariuki woke to find his donkeys missing. The villager searched the bush frantically for the animals he depends on to deliver water for a living, but they were nowhere to be found.

It was the village's children who led Kariuki to the ghastly remains: three bloody, severed donkey heads lying on the ground.

"I was in shock," said Kariuki, 37, who is known in his Kenyan village of Naivasha as "Jose wa Mapunda" — "Joseph of the Donkeys" in Swahili.

Kariuki believes his donkeys were the latest victims of a black market for donkey skins, the key ingredient in a Chinese health fad that's threatening the beasts of burden many Africans rely on for farm work and transporting heavy loads.

From Kenya to Burkina Faso, Egypt to Nigeria, animal rights groups say, agents are seeking to feed China's insatiable appetite for a gelatin they call ejiao (pronounced "uh-jee-ow"), made from stewed donkey skins that purports to provide health benefits.

Shrinking donkey herds in China have driven ejiao producers to seek out donkey skins from Africa, Australia and South America, threatening the world's donkey population and driving violent crime and protests across Africa, the activists say.

Kariuki founded a protest group "Tunza Punda Wako" or "Take Care of Your Donkey" in Swahili. They've picketed the abattoir in Naivasha, accusing it of driving the skin thefts.

"At this rate we will tell our children that donkeys once existed," he said.

Fourteen African governments have banned the export of donkey skins, according to the U.K.-based animal welfare group Donkey Sanctuary.

In Kenya, the donkey population has fallen in the past nine years by a third — from 1.8 million to 1.2 million. Kenya's three licensed slaughterhouses butcher 1,000 donkeys a day to supply skins to China, said Calvin Onyango, program development manager of the Donkey Sanctuary Kenya.

"We do not have many donkeys and most people do not want to sell their donkeys. So to keep supplying these slaughterhouses, we have ended up with businesspeople or brokers stealing other people's donkeys to supply the slaughterhouses," Onyango said.

Onyango said that the rate at which donkeys were being slaughtered meant that there could be none left in five years.

From Kenya, the donkey hides travel thousands of kilometers (miles) to China. Many of them end up in an eastern town called Dong'e, where most of the world's ejiao is made.

On the road into Dong'e, billboard after billboard proclaims the purported curative powers of the gelatin.

"Ejiao, eat for a long life, lose weight, and get more energy," reads a slogan printed on the side of a hotel dedicated to gelatin tourism.

Farmers raise hundreds of donkeys in metal-roofed dirt paddocks surrounding the town. Most donkeys at three farms The Associated Press visited were tagged with the initials of the Dong'e Ejiao Corporation Limited, or DEEJ, the nation's largest producer of donkey gelatin.

The company processes about 1 million skins a year and makes up 63 percent of the ejiao market, according to the Forward Industry Research Institute, a Chinese market research firm. DEEJ says in its latest annual report that its profits rose 10 percent to $313 million last year.

DEEJ president Qin Yufeng declined to be interviewed but sent a statement to the AP saying ejiao has benefited more than 20,000 poor households in 1,000 towns.

Qin said the soaring demand for ejiao isn't the reason that donkey populations are shrinking. Rather, fewer donkeys are being bred, he wrote, because they've been increasingly replaced by machines on farms.

Guo Fanli, an economist in the southern city of Shenzhen, said Qin and DEEJ have inflated ejiao's value by marketing what was typically used for what was believed to be its blood-boosting properties as something with far wider benefits to body health and beauty.

"By enriching the cultural meaning of ejiao, and overstating its actual effects, the company has successfully made it into a health product with multiple uses that can be bought as a gift," Guo said.

"The more it has been hyped, the more miserably it could fall," he said.

Others have echoed skepticism of ejiao's uses. China's government health agency said ejiao marketing was based on "superstitious concepts."

"Donkey hide is just 'boiled donkey skin,'" the commission said in a February statement on the micro-blogging site, Sina Weibo. The commission took down the post after an uproar among traditional medicine enthusiasts.

One such advocate is Fu Yanlin, a professor at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, who says he often prescribes ejiao to the 100 patients he sees a week for urinary, cardiovascular, gynecological and other ailments.

The surge in ejiao demand has driven the price of donkey hides up by nearly five times — from $78 per hide in 2010 to $405 in 2015, according to the Shandong Ejiao Association. China's donkey population, meanwhile, has halved from 9.4 million in 1996 to 5.5 million in 2015, according to Chinese state media, driving producers to look abroad.

In response to the surging demand, state-built donkey abattoirs have sprung up in the African nations of Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Botswana. Niger's hide exports tripled. Botswana slaughtered 3 percent of its total donkey population in six months, according the Donkey Sanctuary.

More than 2 million of the world's 44 million donkeys are killed for their skins every year, according to Donkey Sanctuary.

In rural parts of western Zimbabwe, there are often more donkeys than cars on the roads. Farmers like the Chingodza family are resisting market pressure to sell their donkeys, vital for farm work and transportation to the biggest nearby town, Seke, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside of Harare.

"I like my donkeys. They help a lot and are dear to me," said Jeffrey Chingodza, 65, as he put a yoke on a donkey. "I won't sell for export to Chinese abattoirs," he said.

His son 20-year old son Tawanda, however, said surging prices are tempting.

"When you have a car and you get the first buyer saying 'I will give you $3,000 for it and the second buyer says I will give you $6,000,' what would you do?" Tawanda said. "I will definitely sell. All of us want money."

———

McNeil reported from Dong'e, China. Associated Press researcher Yu Bing contributed from Beijing, writer Farai Mutsaka from Seke, Zimbabwe, and video journalist Desmond Tiro from Nairobi, Kenya.

I worked in an abattoir for a time.
Somehow, I still like eating meat.

Didn't know you worked at a slaughterhouse. I imagine that would sharpen your cutting skills. My uncle was a butcher and he was great with knives. Always had the best cuts of meat. And he's still going at 102 - retired of course, actually in hospice now, but 102!

I do work at being a good person anyway.

I would hope we all do.

[GeneChing]

So boycottable.

Drink fusing Chinese ejiao, Korean ginseng to debut
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-27 21:55:10|Editor: Yurou

JINAN, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Two leading brands in traditional health products of China and the Republic of Korea joined hands on Monday, paving the way for a drink fusion of Chinese ejiao and Korean ginseng set to debut next month.

Dong'e Ejiao, a top ejiao producer based in eastern China's Shandong Province, and Korean Ginseng Corp, a leading company of ginseng products in the Republic of Korea, inked a cooperation agreement on developing health products for different ages and collaborating on research, production and marketing.

With a history of around 2,500 years, ejiao is made by soaking and stewing donkey skin and refining the results into a tonic. There are claims that it can tonify and enrich blood, boost immunity and treat a range of ailments from anemia and dry coughs to dizziness and insomnia.

Meanwhile, there is a long history of ginseng consumption in Asia, where it is considered a food that has remarkable health benefits containing potent vitamins and minerals, antioxidants and other essential nutrients.

Traditional Chinese and Korean medicines share a lot of theories and philosophies, and the cooperation would sell traditional Chinese medicine products in the global market, said Qin Yufeng, head of Dong'e Ejiao.

[GeneChing]

Donkey population decimated by Chinese medicine demand
By Jack Guy, CNN
Updated 12:39 PM ET, Thu November 21, 2019
Donkey populations face collapse from demand for their skins

(CNN)Donkey populations are under serious threat due to the demand for their hides, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine, according to a new report.
Gelatin produced from donkey hide is a key ingredient of one of China's favorite traditional remedies, known as ejiao, which is used to treat a range of ailments from colds to insomnia.
With just under 5 million skins needed ever year for ejiao production, the industry would need more than half the world's current donkeys over the next five years to meet demand, according to a report from The Donkey Sanctuary.
In the past six years the ejiao industry has grown rapidly due to increased demand and price rises, with annual production increasing from 3,200 tonnes in 2013 to 5,600 tonnes in 2016, according to The Donkey Sanctuary.
To meet demand, Chinese businesses need about 4.8 million donkey hides per year.
Donkey populations in China have collapsed 76% since 1992, so the industry has turned to foreign suppliers, particularly in Africa, Asia and South America, says the organization.


A worker carries a dried donkey skin at a slaughterhouse in Kenya. The Donkey Sanctuary has called on China to suspend donkey imports.

Brazil has seen a 28% reduction in donkey populations since 2007, compared to 37% in Botswana and 53% in Kyrgyzstan.
In response The Donkey Sanctuary is pressing for "an urgent halt to the largely unregulated global trade in donkey skins before donkeys are virtually wiped out in some areas."
The impact of the collapse of the donkey population will be felt most keenly by those 500 million people who rely on the animals in some of the world's poorest communities, according to the organization.
There are also reportedly terrible animal welfare abuses in the supply chain, the report states, as donkeys are often stolen then transported to slaughterhouses in terrible conditions.
An estimated 20% of the animals die in transit.
Given the scale of demand, even pregnant mares and young foals, as well as sick and injured donkeys, are being traded.
The report reveals that the trade also presents biosecurity risks, with unhygienic practices encouraging the spread of diseases such as anthrax, tetanus and equine flu.
"This is suffering on an enormous and unacceptable scale," said Mike Baker, chief executive of The Donkey Sanctuary.
"This suffering is not just confined to donkeys as it also threatens the livelihood of millions of people."
The Donkey Sanctuary is pressing for ejiao manufacturers to switch to artificially-grown donkey-derived collagen, rather than hides.
China should also suspend the import of donkeys, according to the organization.
The Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine (RCHM), which regulates traditional Chinese herbal medicine in the UK, said it condemns the use of substances that endanger animals or subject them to cruel practices.
The organization recognizes the outcry over unethical sourcing of donkey hides, said RCHM council member Martin John in a statement.
"Whilst such gelatin products have their medicinal uses, their use in modern Chinese medicine practice is unnecessary and unethical using current sourcing," said John.
Gelatin from beef, pork or chicken can be used as an alternative, added John, while vegetarians can use certain kinds of seaweeds and herbs.
China's rapid industrialization and move away from traditional agriculture saw the country's donkey population plummet in recent decades.
Traders started to look elsewhere for hides, buying up such large numbers of animals that governments such as Niger and Burkina Faso banned the sale of donkeys to China due to environmental and economic problems.
So far 18 countries have taken action to protect their donkey populations, according to The Donkey Sanctuary.

The word for Donkey in Mandarin is Lu 驴, just in case you were wondering.