A brochure advertises wine made from tiger bone. Photograph courtesy IFAW.
Tigers were classified as globally endangered in 1986. The following year, a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty banned cross-border trade in tiger parts. From 1990 to 1992, China exported some 27 million units of tiger medicines and wine to 26 countries, according to TRAFFIC, a nonprofit that documents illegal wildlife trade. Tiger remedies were seen in pharmacies in Asian communities all over the world.
China formally banned domestic trade of tiger bone in 1993. The next year, some Chinese medical practitioners publicly repudiated the use and efficacy of tiger remedies; today, very few pharmacies still openly carry remedies containing tiger products. But the market slipped underground and shadowy networks still thrive. Though tiger hunting is illegal everywhere, the killing has continued, and in some places, it’s accelerated.
Prices for tigers, dead or alive, continue to soar as populations collapse. Poaching for their bones (and skins) has become a primary threat to their survival.
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A partial list of traditional medicine uses for tiger parts:
Bile: Used to treat convulsions in children
Blood: Used to strengthen the constitution and build willpower
Bone: Used as an anti-inflammatory to arthritis, rheumatism, back problems, general weakness, or headaches; also considered a powerful tonic
Brain: A treatment for laziness and pimples
Claws: A sedative for sleeplessness
Eyeballs: A treatment for malaria and epilepsy, nervousness or fevers in children, convulsions and cataracts
Fat: Prescribed for dog bites, vomiting, hemorrhoids
Feces: A cure for boils, hemorrhoids and alcoholism
Flesh: Used to treat nausea and malaria, to bring vitality and tone the stomach and spleen
Feet: Used to ward off evil spirits
Fur: Is burnt to drive away centipedes
Nose leather: Used to treat bites and other superficial wounds, for epilepsy and children’s convulsions
*****: Used as an aphrodisiac or love potion
Skin: Used to cure fever caused by ghosts and mental illness
Stomach: Prescribed for stomach upsets
Teeth: Prescribed for rabies, asthma, and genital sores
Tail: Used to cure skin diseases
Whiskers: Used to treat toothaches
(Source: KILLED FOR A CURE: A Review of the Worldwide Trade in Tiger Bone.)
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