150 million seahorses are killed annually to supply Chinese traditional medicine; biologists estimate they will be wiped out within two decades
[When I started this blog in 2008, my first post was about a dog who was chained inside a gallery and starved as part of an "artwork." Since then, animal welfare has remained a primary theme on 13.7 Billion Years. Over the years, I have learned about countless stories of animal cruelty here in the United States and across the world. But one country has shown the most blatant and widespread disregard for the lives and well-being of non-human animals: China. As Mahatma Gandhi wisely observed, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated." If China is to become a great nation, it has a lot of work to do. One way concerned people can help put pressure on China to change is to stop buying Chinese goods. More than 2.3 million people worldwide have signed the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare, and the number of animal lovers around the globe is much greater. Imagine if all of them stopped purchasing Chinese products. So, every weekday for the month of August, I'll give animal lovers one reason to boycott China—23 reasons in all. It will not be an easy month to digest all the horrific stories and cruel practices. But I have placed great value in a quote by the late philosopher Albert Schweitzer: "Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight." This month, I'll be doing that, and I hope you will too. -- Reynard Loki]
Chinese traditional medicine (TCM) believes that seahorse can treat kidney ailments, urinary incontinence, high cholesterol, lymph node disorders, goiter, circulatory problems and impotence, some 90 TCM products containing seahorses are sold in China, where they have been valued for their purported medicinal effect for around 600 years. Of course, these claims have no basis in science; they are based on superstition.
"Thirty-two countries and regions are involved in harvesting some 20,000,000 seahorses each year," according to Encyclopedia Britannia, with major sources being the Philippines, Indonesia and India. "[Y]et 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."
Seahorses are "overexploited and in grave danger of extinction," according to Norah Saarman of the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. "An estimated 24.5 million or 70 tons of seahorses are sold annually for use in Chinese medicine," she writes, noting that TCM values them because they are "high in yang, the active male force."
"But seahorses are a fragile species that respond quickly to habitat destruction and overfishing and may not be able to survive the current rate of harvest. Seahorses are sparsely distributed and don't travel much, so once they're removed from an area they don't return easily. They also remain faithful to their mate and don't reproduce quickly, making them exceptionally vulnerable to population reduction when too many are caught at sexual maturity."
To protect them from exploitation, seahorses were added to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) agreement in 2004. But without proper enforcement and the growing demand in China, the harvesting of these beautiful and mysterious creatures continues. Also, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, and South Korea have chosen to opt out of the trade rules set by CITES.
Two years after seahorse were placed on CITES Appendix II, Saarman found "large jars and trays of seahorses available in almost every herbal supply shop in Chinatown, San Francisco."
But the original estimate of 20 million seahorses killed per year is now considered a mere fraction of the real number, as new undercover filming "found at least 150 million of the fragile creatures are now killed to make its products every year in China—seven times the official figure," according to the Daily Mail.
"It' s a huge underestimate," said marine biologist Kealan Doyle. "I visited stores which had something like 30,000 dried seahorses in bags piled from floor to ceiling and there are 6,000 such stores in Hong Kong alone. We are not talking about a slow decline here, this is an absolute decimation of this unique creature which has been with us for millions of years. At this rate, it will be wiped out in between 10 and 20 years."
"Many, many more people can now afford seahorses who couldn't before," said Doyle, "and what's really worrying is that they are now commonly being ground up and made into pills."
ACTION ALERTS
Chinese traditional medicine (TCM) believes that seahorse can treat kidney ailments, urinary incontinence, high cholesterol, lymph node disorders, goiter, circulatory problems and impotence, some 90 TCM products containing seahorses are sold in China, where they have been valued for their purported medicinal effect for around 600 years. Of course, these claims have no basis in science; they are based on superstition.
"Thirty-two countries and regions are involved in harvesting some 20,000,000 seahorses each year," according to Encyclopedia Britannia, with major sources being the Philippines, Indonesia and India. "[Y]et 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."
Seahorses are "overexploited and in grave danger of extinction," according to Norah Saarman of the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. "An estimated 24.5 million or 70 tons of seahorses are sold annually for use in Chinese medicine," she writes, noting that TCM values them because they are "high in yang, the active male force."
"But seahorses are a fragile species that respond quickly to habitat destruction and overfishing and may not be able to survive the current rate of harvest. Seahorses are sparsely distributed and don't travel much, so once they're removed from an area they don't return easily. They also remain faithful to their mate and don't reproduce quickly, making them exceptionally vulnerable to population reduction when too many are caught at sexual maturity."
To protect them from exploitation, seahorses were added to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) agreement in 2004. But without proper enforcement and the growing demand in China, the harvesting of these beautiful and mysterious creatures continues. Also, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, and South Korea have chosen to opt out of the trade rules set by CITES.
Two years after seahorse were placed on CITES Appendix II, Saarman found "large jars and trays of seahorses available in almost every herbal supply shop in Chinatown, San Francisco."
But the original estimate of 20 million seahorses killed per year is now considered a mere fraction of the real number, as new undercover filming "found at least 150 million of the fragile creatures are now killed to make its products every year in China—seven times the official figure," according to the Daily Mail.
"It' s a huge underestimate," said marine biologist Kealan Doyle. "I visited stores which had something like 30,000 dried seahorses in bags piled from floor to ceiling and there are 6,000 such stores in Hong Kong alone. We are not talking about a slow decline here, this is an absolute decimation of this unique creature which has been with us for millions of years. At this rate, it will be wiped out in between 10 and 20 years."
"Many, many more people can now afford seahorses who couldn't before," said Doyle, "and what's really worrying is that they are now commonly being ground up and made into pills."
ACTION ALERTS
- Sign a Care2 petition urging Chinese president Hu Jintao to stop killing endangered species
- Sign a Care2 petition asking the Chinese government to ban shark finning
- Sign PETA's Pledge to Be Fur-Free
- Sign a ForceChange petition to protect threatened populations of Asian musk deer
- Sign a Care for Chinese Animals petition to ban dog and cat meat in China
- Join Bill Clinton, Paul McCartney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Bono, Ricky Gervais, Roger Moore, Susan Sarandon, Anjelica Huston, Jeremy Irons, Paula Abdul, Joan Jett, Annie Lennox, Elton John and thousands of others who have signed the TigerTime petition urging Chinese premier Wen Jiabao to call for an end to all tiger trade in China
- Sign a Change.org petition to close China's bear bile farms
- Sign the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW)
- Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter
23 REASONS ANIMAL LOVERS SHOULD BOYCOTT CHINA
- Reason #1: China Tortures and Kills Bears
- Reason #2: China Kills Endangered Tigers
- Reason #3: China Slaughters Dogs Inhumanely, Eats Them
- Reason #4: China Is Pushing Musk Deer to Extinction
- Reason #5: China Tortures Animals on Fur Farms
- Reason #6: Chinese Delicacy Fuels Torture and Death of Sharks
- Reason #7: China Is Pushing Seahorse to Extinction
- Reason #8: China Sells Live Animals in Sealed Plastic Keychains
- Reason #9: China Tortures and Kills Monkeys for Monkey Brain Dish
- Reason #10: China Sells Toxic Treats That Kill Dogs
- Reason #11: China Clubbed 50,000 Dogs to Death
- Reason #12: China Supports Slaughter of Elephants for Ivory
- Reason #13: China Abuses Cows and Baby Calves
- Reason #14: China Is Pushing Endangered Rhino to Extinction
- Reason #15: China Is Pushing Endangered Pangolin to Extinction
- Reason #16: China Massacred Tens of Thousands of Cats for Olympics
- Reason #17: China Requires Animal Testing on Cosmetics
- Reason #18: China Kills Endangered Turtles
- Reason #19: China Kills Baby Mice for Delicacy Dish
- Reason #20: China Sells Videos of Animals Being Crushed to Death
- Reason #21: China Allows Horse Fighting
- Reason #22: China Drowns Baby Mice to Make a Health Tonic
- Reason #23: For Countless Animals, China Is Hell on Earth
- Dog Days of Summer: Selected videos of man's best friend
- Second Rock from the Sun: Looking at Venus
- Ars Animalis: Looking at animals throughout the history of art
- Women's History Month: Remembering 22 women in science
- Purity Month: Looking at 100%
- Instead of This, Try This: Starting the new year with change
- Victory Month: Celebrating positive change through grassroots action
- Of Rice and Men: Cooking the world's most important grain for human nutrition
- 21 Days, 21 Reasons, 21 Recipes, 21 Quotes: Eating plants, loving animals
- Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
- Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
- Deep Space: Staring at the stars
- Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
- Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
- Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
- Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
- Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
- Reports from 2050: Imagining the future
image: Seahorses in a traditional Chinese medicine shop, Guangzhou, China (credit: dreisin.demon.co.uk)
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1 comment:
China -the hell hole for all animals,who gives -them -the right to kill and destroy animals such as the -Tiger-Elephant -Lion -rhino -the sea horse etc they are animals that are on the endangered list -they don't belong to them -they belong to the world and they are decimating them by making their weird and wonderful potions from their poor bodies.
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