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Chinese Medicine Linked To Animal Endangerment and Black Market Trade

Nutritional treatments are an important tool of Chinese medicine and it is not surprising that with the burgeoning popularity of this alternative form of health care in the West the demand for specialty food items is also increasing. Take for example the treatment of asthma, hyper activity, inability to concentrate, indigestion, and lowered sex drive which is sought to be accomplished by including bird's nests into the diet of the patient. These nests are the actual homes of the swiftlet crafted during breeding season by a small bird native to certain regions in Asia. It is interesting to note that the bird uses almost solely its saliva to craft the nest which looks a lot like a coup or bowl, and which serves to hold the eggs and hatchlings, while the nest itself is attached to the rock faces of various formations.

Yet while demand for the swiftlets' nests is increasing, environmental point to Chinese medicine as being linked to animal endangerment and also black market trade; all this ensues in spite of the attempts by local governments to regulate the harvesting of the nests and also provide deterrents against illegal or out of season harvesters. The first line of governmental defense was the establishment of a finite group of approved nest harvesters. No sooner where government contracts handed out, that black market dealers established their own legions of illicit harvesters, usually individuals with little to lose but much to gain by circumventing the laws, and under the cover of darkness seek to encroach on the territories offered to the big companies.

Even as poaching is not new, when combined with governmental corruption it takes on a life of its own, and thus it is not surprising to see money changing hands in favor of stayed sentences or canceled court proceedings due to lack of evidence. In other cases, enterprising poachers have formed gangs which use intimidation to ply their trade. In all out turf wars, those conducting the black market trade are known to raid fellow poachers' known areas of operation and seek to physically either intimidate them to seek other harvesting grounds, or they will even resort to murder in an effort to benefit from the growing market that is the edible bird's nest.

Whether it is governmental unwillingness or inability to prevent poaching, the facts are the same and the swiftlets are quickly becoming an endangered species. As their nests are ripped out virtually from underneath the birds, eggs are destroyed, hatchlings fall to their deaths from the steep rock formations where the nests are located, and without the next generation, the overall mortality of the bird colonies is high. In an interesting twist, many colonies are now seeking other breeding grounds and thus the failure of a well harvested breeding ground to provide further nests will lead to an increase in price of nests harvested, thus spurring on the illicit poachers to even greater efforts.

Of course, the toll in human life is not to be disregarded. Swiftlets place their nests in hard to reach crevices on steep rock faces, and as legitimate and illegitimate harvesters seek to reach them the risk to the person's life is staggering. Many a harvester has plunged to his death when attempting to reach a nest that was just an inch too high or the scaffolding utilized in this trade was too old and not well maintained.