gjersy

Was shocked to read that 120,000 (and counting) Saiga Antelope died in the Kazakhatan area. Thats a big chunk of the total population, as they are endangered already. In 1984 100,000 died off and in 2010 12,000 died, the cause wasn't conclusively identified. There's different ideas on what caused it, the good news is they have good a fertility rate, with lots of twins. Hope they pull through.

flags

What they don't tell you is that less than 20 years ago there were a couple of million Siaga. Russia let some folks wage what was basically a war against them with automatic weapons to supply the horns to the Chinese folk medicine trade. They tried to get a sport hunting program going for trophy hunters but the big herds were wiped out (like the American Bison) in a commercial manner. Sad.

The Chinese folk medicine trade is wiping complete species out. In our lifetime we will probably see the tiger, the Indian Rhino, the Asiatic Black Bear, the Siaga and several other species go extinct in the wild due to folk medicine.

Mickey Finn

I'm with you. They are an ancient, and interesting species. It would be a shame to see the go.

Oldtimr

Eurasia doesn;t have a lock on problems with orientals wanting wildlife parts for their folk medicine. PA has had a problem for years with Chinese and Korean black market activity nemely with black bear gall bladders and paws and deer antler in the velvet. They occasionally congregate around bear check stations trying to buy bear parts from successful hunters and either trying to pay them for the gall bladder and paws if still in and on the bear or for telling them where the gut pile is in the woods. A lot of them have been prosecuted so that activity has slowed down some but it sure hasn't ended ,the trade in gall bladders and bear paws has just gone deeper underground but it is still there and it encourages bear poaching, NY state has the same problem. PA has a very large Korean population and especially in the Pocono area and that is one area where there are lots of bears. A fresh or frozen gall bladder depending on the size will sell from $50,00 to into the hundreds of dollars and when dried and powdered that same gall bladder can sell for thousands in China and Korea. The desire for soft deer antlers also is incentive for poaching and they are dried and ground into powder as well and are considered an aphrodisiac. Back in the 80's NY and PA ran undercover operation on the black market of wildlife parts to orientals. I believe NY's was called operation Berkshire. California also has a big problem with the sale of bear parts. PA undercover officers were contacted by a big illegal bear killing operation where they ran bears with dogs and killed them year round. They bought so many bear galls from those guys that the California game agency tried to tell PA they were being dupped and were buying hog gall bladders. Boy were they surprised when they found out PA knew what they had. There is a huge amount of money in the illegal trade in wildlife parts for traditional oriental medicine and with so much money, it will not stop anytime soon.

gjersy

Is there any ground up horn they don't use for aphrodisiac medicine?

Mickey Finn

I don't know.