Thank you for signing!
Donkeys Shouldn't Have To Die For This 'Medicine'
Final signature count: 57,367
57,367 signatures toward our 75,000 goal
Sponsor: The Animal Rescue Site
Help us convince China to enact stronger animal welfare laws, and stop the donkey slaughter!
Sign this petition to tell the Chinese government to ban the slaughter and export of donkeys for their skins.
In 2016 alone, the world lost an estimated 8 percent of its donkeys. Many were stolen, some were skinned alive, and all were part of a black market trade that fuels the Asian ejiao industry [1].
China saw its own donkey population drop from 11 million in 1990 to around 6 million in 2014 [2]. Now that the demand for donkey meat and ejiao, a medicine believed to improve circulation and ease a number of other health issues, has increased, external sources of donkey products are being considered.
China reduced its tariff on donkey skins in late 2017 from 5 percent to 2 percent, making it even easier, and more lucrative, for ejiao manufacturers to get what they need, and placing the future of donkeys around the world in peril [3].
In response, donkeys around the world are now being kidnapped or stolen, and skinned alive to fuel this industry. In Africa, where donkeys are used for transportation, and religious custom often forbids eating donkey meat, donkey thievery is especially damaging both to health and culture.
“From Tanzania to Peru, South Africa to Pakistan, donkeys across the world are being stolen and skinned in the night, their carcasses found by distraught owners and their skins imported into China,” said Alex Mayers, the Donkey Sanctuary’s head of programs [4].
Traders can sell a donkey hide for as much as 3,000 yuan (USD $460) today, whereas the same skin would have sold for a fifteenth of that price in 2000 [5].
“For millions of people in some of the world’s poorest communities, donkeys are still the main means of livelihood and sustain families by providing them with an income and independence,” Mayers said [4]. “This latest news from China is sadly a backwards step for donkeys and for communities that rely on them.”
Uganda, Tanzania, Botswana, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal have banned the export of donkey skin and meat products to China [3]. A growing number of individuals are standing up against those exports, too.
Sign this petition to join us in telling China to stop!
