Ox tendon, bugs, fish heads, chicken feet, bear gall bladders....

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Is there anything that the Chinese won't eat?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19606626/?GT1=10150

[Brownian Motion]

Anti-freeze. It's too valuable an export.

[porcy62]

Humorous comments a part, chinese diet is starting to be a serious problem. I was in Madagascar recently and had some scuba dives. The guys at the diving center told me that, because of chinese traditional medicine and food habits, (but don't forget japanese), the number of endangered marine animals and plants are rapidly growning over there. Big chinese companies pay good money for everything, from shark's fins to algas, and the local fishermen, usually poor, are happy. The point is that, with a theorical market of one billion and half of people, the natural resources are at risk and once the natural balance is gone, the chinese will have to watch the Spielberg's movie for curing their diseases. And I'll not see a sleeping whitefin shark in a submarine cave anymore, like happened in my last dive.

Edited July 6, 2007 by porcy62

[MoGrubb]

I've heard that people have killed black bears hear in NC just for the pancreas(?, a single body part), for the Chinese.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Yes, you're quite right....although it's actually the gall bladders that they take. This was a serious problem back in the late 80's/early 90's with an alarming number of bear carcasses -- minus paws and gall bladders -- turning up in national forests. It was real bad down in NC, TN and various spots out West. Buyers -- mostly Korean actually -- hooking up with local poachers and paying premium $$ for galls, then exporting them directly to Asia. I'm fairly well versed in the subject matter because back in the early 90's I spent a good deal of time collaborating with some well known Black/Brown bear specialists as well as the undercover wing of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (who were running various stings to catch the buyers/poachers in action. One sting, in a Northern VA parking lot netted close to 100 gall bladders & other parts that were in a cooler in a car trunk). I also drafted the first 'Black Bear Protection Act' legislation that was introduced in the House of representatives back in 1993. H.R. 55 which you'll find listed on the following page. I can't say that it was the magic bullet, make-the-world-completely-safe-for-bears piece of legislation.....but I'm proud to say that it did heighten awareness and get the ball rolling in Congress.

http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/?&...01+@4(Exports))

Edited July 6, 2007 by Son-of-a-Weizen