Opinion
Prescription for extinction
China has spread its hungry tentacles all over the animal kingdomManeka Sanjay Gandhi
Our wildlife is vanishing rapidly. One of the main causes for it is the greed of our neighbour China.
China has spread its hungry tentacles all over the animal kingdom. From killing dogs for meat and fur, killing elephants for ivory, musk deer for their hormone sacs, pangolins, rhinos, all manner of sea creatures, sharks for soup, tigers, bears for their bile to even butterflies and insects, China is smuggling animals out of each country. We have found illegal factories in Karnataka where insects have been put into plastic keychains to be exported to China. Everyday our ports are used to smuggle out lakhs of seahorses, aquarium fish, birds, skins, shark fins and big cat bones.
Killing animals
China kills animals for three reasons: ‘Traditional’ medicine for extremely useless ‘cures’—rhino horns, for everything from headaches to syphilis, bear bile which is extracted from bears for aphrodisiacs, tiger bone which is used for rheumatism and impotence, for instance. For food they have the most bizarre tastes. If you are rich you must show off with shark fin soup which has no taste and no nutrients, pangolin meat from the most uniquely scaled mammal in the world, every kind of sea creature and the rarer the better. For fur—this can be the skin of anything—from domestic cats, dogs, squirrels, otters, snow leopards, horses to donkeys.
All these animals are bought from other countries illegally. They are killed in the most gruesome way imaginable.
When China’s President Xi Jinping declared his commitment to combating wildlife trade we thought he was serious. But of course, he was just doing what politicians do: Adopting popular stances internationally while doing the exact opposite at home.
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) has threatened to put sanctions against nations that have not stopped the illegal ivory trade. Poaching has increased three times from 1998. Three African and five Asian countries have been asked to come up with credible plans of action for curbing the trade across and within their borders or face trade sanctions next year.
The nations threatened with sanctions are Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and China. Sanctions would keep those nations from trading even in legal wildlife products with other CITES member nations.
If CITES would simply put sanctions on Japan and China, the African nations would stop killing their elephants because there would be no buyers left. But does anyone have the courage to tackle these two countries? Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam are merely transit countries to China.
Awful law
In the light of this, the new draft of Wildlife Protection Law, made by the State Forestry Administration in China (the old one was made in 1989), should alarm all countries.
This is what it says:
While the previous one’s purpose is to protect and save threatened wildlife, the new draft version adds the competing goal of “regulating the utilization of wildlife”; which means that it is business as usual—any Chinese citizen can continue to exploit wildlife.
The draft law continues to allow the existence of captive breeding programmes of wild animals for commercial purposes, as well as the capture of wild animals for these programmes. The language legitimises the use of wildlife for commercial purposes and encourages more consumption of wildlife products. China’s new draft wildlife conservation law will continue to allow the extraction of bile from captive bears for traditional Chinese medicine and supplements. According to Jill Robinson, the head of Animals Asia, the bears are subjected to: “rusting catheters, barbaric full-metal jackets with neck spikes, medicinal pumps and open, infected holes drilled into their bellies.” Thousands of tigers are being bred in 200 farms and killed for skin, bones and meat. China has the world’s biggest mink, fox, and raccoon dog fur farms. Chinese law does not even consider fur-bearing farmed animals, wildlife. They are considered “economic animals.” They are kept in cramped cages exposed to the elements, and skinned alive.
Second, it explicitly states that wildlife can be used in making traditional Chinese medicine, health care supplements, and food for profit, again legitimising the consumption of wildlife and opening the market further to ‘supplements’, something never before made legal in Chinese law. This means thousands of Indian animals ranging from rhino to scorpions will continue to be smuggled into China.
And lastly, it endorses the use of wild animals for public displays and performances, which is a step back from a 2010 policy recommendation that banned performances by animals in zoos. Now the law makes it clear that wild animal performances are allowed at safari parks, marine parks, circuses, aquariums, and other privately owned enterprises. Tigers jumping through rings of fire, bears riding bicycles, and monkeys doing acrobatics are just a few of the shows put on for tourists. Training often includes beatings. By continuing to allow animal performances, the law condones the exploitation of captive wildlife for commercial entertainment without providing any provisions for the well-being of the animals. Tiger farms also generate money. The growing demand for luxury wildlife products, to show off wealth, has also driven business. There is no stigma on tiger products in China and that has encouraged poaching of wild tigers.
The new draft law condones the practice of eating wildlife. Up to 100 million sharks are killed each year for shark fin soup and 98 percent come from India. Fins for shark fin soup are procured by slicing the fin off a live shark and then throwing the fish back into the sea to bleed to death. About 100 million sharks are killed each year and its population is down by 70 percent. India banned the export of shark fins in 2015. Today the ban has been challenged in Kerala and smuggling continues. Demand for bird’s nest soup, which is made from the saliva-based nests of the swiftlet, is driving these birds to extinction globally. They build cuplike nests on the sides of cave walls from their saliva, which, when mixed with water creates a gelatinous flavouring for soup. The swiftlet population is down by 65 percent from 1990.
The new Chinese draft law explicitly allows the use of wildlife in foodstuffs.
The Chinese draft law views wildlife as a resource to be developed and used. In fact, the word “utilization” is used 24 times in the new draft, which includes no language on humane treatment. China also does not have a single national animal welfare law. Because the draft law fails to include any anti-cruelty requirements, it endorses the cruel practices impacting the welfare of captive wildlife.
Be afraid, India. Be very afraid.
To join the animal welfare movement contact [email protected], www.peopleforanimalsindia.org