Bitter Pill to Swallow: China’S Flagrant Trade in Leopard Bone Products
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Wildlife A Bitter Pill to Swallow: China’s flagrant trade in leopard bone products April 2020 Wildlife ©EIAimage CONTENTS We would like to thank ABOUT EIA EIA UK Above: Leopards have been lost Introduction 4 62-63 Upper Street, from 85 per cent of their Asian Ximporae.EIA would Utlike aut to fugitisthank restithe ut atia We investigate and campaign against range with poaching for trade in Background 6 London N1 0NY UK their parts a primary threat nobitfollowing ium foralici their bla conesupport: consequam Network environmental crime and abuse. T: +44 (0) 20 7354 7960 Methodology 8 cusfor Social aci oditaquates Change, Ernest dolorem Kleinwort volla Our undercover investigations E: [email protected] vendam,Charitable consequo Trust and molor The sinRufford net Legitimising consumption: how Government policy expose transnational wildlife crime, eia-international.org fugitatur,Foundation. qui int que nihic tem with a focus on elephants and permits leopard bone trade 9 asped quei oditaquates dolorem tigers, and forest crimes such as volla vendam, conseqci oditaquates EIA US Connecting the dots: leopard bone products illegal logging and deforestation for dolorem volla vendam, consequo PO Box 53343 cash crops like palm oil. We work to and Government permits 10 molor sin net fugitatur, qui int que Washington DC 20009 USA safeguard global marine ecosystems nihic tem asped quei oditaquates T: +1 202 483 6621 The tip of the iceberg? Permits to trade in protected wildlife issued by addressing the threats posed dolorem volla vendam, consuo molor E: [email protected] by plastic pollution, bycatch since 2017 15 sin net fugitatur, qui int que nihic eia-global.org and commercial exploitation of tem asped que n nes ape verrovid Potential for contributing to illegal international trade 16 whales, dolphins and porpoises. maximolorera doles magni tet ea Environmental Investigation Agency Finally, we reduce the impact of CITES Parties urge closure of domestic markets for Asian big cats 17 voluptas enis as de evel ipsam (UK) Ltd. Company Number: 7752350 climate change by campaigning dolendit, voluptam endusci psunto VAT Number: 440569842. Registered Recommendations 18 to eliminate powerful refrigerant quibusandit, sitaque enture inEnvironmental England and Investigation Wales Agency UK greenhouse gases, exposing related Appendix I 19 UK Charity Number: 1182208 illicit trade and improving energy Company Number: 07752350 Appendix II 22 efficiency in the cooling sector. Registered in England and Wales References 23 2 Environmental Investigation Agency BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW 3 Introduction Asia’s leopards (Panthera pardus) are in danger of quietly slipping into extinction, with illegal killing to meet demand for their body parts a key driver of their rapid decline. Yet authorities in China – the main source of demand for leopard parts – continue to allow legal commercial trade in traditional medicine products containing leopard bone, which are apparently exempt from wildlife trade bans adopted in the wake of coronavirus COVID-19. In this report, EIA names 24 Chinese companies which appear to be producing and selling products listing leopard seizure incidents indicating leopard bone Despite the long-standing international was seized without stating a weight), trade ban and a domestic ban on hunting bone as an ingredient. this indicates that reported quantities the few wild leopards remaining in China of leopard bone alone seized from illegal – and thus a lack of any replenishable It is a measure of the severity of the While decisions adopted by the National trade are not an adequate indicator of the legal source – Chinese authorities current biodiversity crisis that the People’s Congress Standing Committee in scale of trafficking. continue to permit large-scale commercial leopard, that most adaptable of big cats, February 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 trade in leopard bone products. has disappeared from approximately 85 outbreak have restricted trade in wildlife Snow leopards and clouded leopards – per cent of its Asian range.1 The figures as food, trade for other purposes such both listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN The existence of a parallel legal market in for several Asian subspecies are even as traditional medicine and ornamental Red List – are also seriously threatened leopard bone serves to remove the stigma more stark: Indochinese leopards are now items is still permitted, including for by trade in their body parts. A minimum of consumption and to legitimise use, absent from 94 per cent of their historical protected species. of 301 snow leopards and 117 clouded while also complicating law enforcement range, extinct or functionally extinct in leopards have been seized from illegal efforts. Moreover, there is a total lack of 8 Laos, Vietnam and Singapore, and almost As China’s own leopard population has trade since 2000, although other transparency from Government agencies extinct in Cambodia and China.2 In China been pushed to near extinction, leopards estimates of the scale of snow leopard regarding quantities and provenance 9 as a whole, the total population of leopards elsewhere in Asia have been targeted trade and the visibility of clouded of leopard bone in stockpiles. This, set 10 across the country was estimated in 2015 for their body parts. Of a minimum 5,332 leopards in markets in South-East Asia against a backdrop of rampant poaching to be fewer than 450 individuals.3 Asian leopards that have been seized suggest the true scale of killing for their and trafficking of leopards across Asia from illegal trade since 20004, 4,151 were body parts is far greater. The term used for with comparatively little leopard bone 5 ‘leopard bone’ in TCM ( / bao [leopard] being seized from trade, raises the A major factor in the leopard’s continuing seized in India – approximately five-and- ©EIAimage 豹骨 decline throughout Asia is illegal killing a-half times the number of tigers seized gu [bone]) is ambiguous, as the generic serious possibility that some of the for trade in their body parts. Demand in the country during the same period. character for leopard – 豹 (bao) – could bone in China’s legal trade is derived be used to refer to leopard, snow leopard, from animals illegally killed outside for their bones, primarily from Chinese These figures comprise seizures of whole ©EIAimage consumers, is one of the drivers of this leopards, as represented by whole skins, clouded leopard or even other species China and smuggled into the country in trade. Leopard bone is consumed in carcasses, taxidermy specimens or live such as jaguar (which translates literally contravention of CITES. similar ways to tiger bone, steeped in rice animals; seizures of bone or skeletons are as “American leopard”). The TCM term “bao wine to produce health tonics and used in omitted to avoid possible double counting. gu” is sometimes translated into Latin as While the majority of TCM practitioners the production of traditional medicines. As much illegal trade goes undetected or “Os pardi” on product labelling, this being do not use the body parts of threatened unreported, the true number of leopards in a non-scientific term used by the industry wildlife such as leopards, the actions of Leopard bone has a long history as an trade is likely far higher. which has no taxonomic meaning. the companies detailed in this report, as ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine well as the decision-makers who have (TCM) and, in addition since a 1993 State Moreover, the number of leopard skins In recognition of the threat posed to continued to permit the use of leopard Council Notification (repealed in 2018) seized far exceeds the number of animals these species by commercial trade, the bone, are serving to both exacerbate banning use of tiger bone and rhino horn represented by seizures of bone. For leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard threats to Asia’s imperilled big cats and in medicines, leopard bone has been example, between 2014-18, at least 516 were included on the very first version tarnish the image of traditional Chinese widely used in formulations similar to leopard skins were seized in Asia.6 Based of Appendix I of the Convention on medicine as a whole. those which would traditionally have on NGO and media reports, EIA was able International Trade in Endangered Species Top left to right: Snow leopard and clouded leopard. contained tiger bone. Based on testimony to quantify the seizure of only 250.9kg of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) when the Both species are threatened by trade in their body parts. Convention was adopted in 1975, banning The ambiguous term for leopard bone “Os pardi” used in from individuals engaged in illegal of leopard bone in Asia during the same traditional Chinese medicine is applied to the bones of trade, consumers in China also illegally period – equivalent to the bones of international trade in the species or their leopards, snow leopards or clouded leopards purchase leopard bone that has been sold approximately 32 individual leopards.7 parts and derivatives for commercial to them as tiger. While this figure is a minimum (with, purposes. Left: Leopard skulls and bones offered illegally for sale for example, additional media reports of in China 4 Environmental Investigation Agency BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW 5 Background The use of leopard bone in packaged TCM products in China has been reported During the course of research on Down since at least 1994,11 while in 2007 China to the Bone, EIA identified at least 31 first reported to CITES that Government manufacturers which were advertising regulations issued in March 2006 stated a total of 36 products on their websites, that “only existing stock of leopard for which the ingredients list explicitly bones could be used” by pharmaceutical included “leopard bone” [bao gu]. Revisiting manufacturers.12 Quantities of leopard this research in 2019, several of these bone held in such stockpiles and the websites appeared to have gone offline.