Protection

Two years ago I traveled through China to look at it's nature. I am sad to say that most of the wildlife I saw I encountered at markets. This was one of the most shocking things a salamander fan can ever come across. The sad thing about it is that there is no protection for these animals, and they're still being killed by the thousand for nothing.

Yes, it is indeed a horrible sight seeing them killed without a purpose.

from the looks of it; they seem to be used for folk medicine. i am not condoning the pratice but i would like to point out that herbal medicine, with the usage of dried animals, play a large role in the health care of chinese elderly and poor, and those that have little monetary resource to go to a hospital. Herbal mediecine, is compartively cheaper and in some cases just as if not more effective than its western counterparts. With that pointed out, i hope you guys understand that there was a reason for what you saw.

(Message edited by newtron on March 04, 2005)

Yes, I know this. I've read a lot about this subject and the working of most of these medicine especially the dried animals has never been proven, (think about the rhino horns and tiger bones e.t.c.) so they probably did die for nothing. And this picture was taken in a large city near Hong Kong, the people there have access to other sources of medicine which do work.
I don't mind people using nature for their own benefits on a small scale but these animals were lying there in such large numbers that I could only think of the impact it must have on the wild population. And sadly enough this is not the only species they use in this industry. Lot's of populations in the wild (not only amphibians) there are rapidly declining and since we don't seem to have a shortage of people on this planet
I tend to choose the animals side.

Without comments... ( horrifying )

wowww...

Wow... what a sight there should be laws against that stuff

I live in the NYC, USA, and last summer i went into a Chinese supermarket. In one of the meat sections, next to the seafood area, were buckets lined up on the floor. In one of them were what seemed to be soft shell turtles, in another they had these brown grey, rather fat frogs with, I think, worm shaped noses. Or were those the turtles? I cant remember very well. But the frogs were kinda flat looking and wide with tiny little eyes for their size. Does anyone know if this was illegal?

Did they look like this? I'm afraid it is legal.
If we are allowed to keep them, they are allowed to eat them. They are specially being bred at farms.

That's a pretty awful sight for salamander fans like us, though for me it doesn't quite compare in unacceptability with the German Shepherd pelt farms and St. Bernard meat farms that they have operating over there in China

Anyway, that's an interesting pic you posted there. I posted something similarly once at:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/15401.jpg

And then something about what goes on here in Japan (rarely) at:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/8/1634.html

But to get some perspective, consider the situation in the U.S. where live salamanders are regularly used as fishing bait in some parts of the country:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/8/15430.html

Well that's pretty awful as well!
People are the same all over the world, aren't they? It a shame to see how people treat the life forms around them.