Wild plant and animal species around the globe are confronted with a variety of threats to their continued survival, including habitat loss, pollution, and poaching. For thousands of species, illegal and unsustainable collection and trade poses a long-standing, consistent threat that remains inadequately addressed. One of the most deep-rooted and complex of these aspects is the international trade in certain species for use in traditional medicines.
Numerous cultures throughout the world have depended on traditional medicines for thousands of years, and traditional medicine, in turn, depends on tens of thousands of plant and animal species used as ingredients. Though traditional medicines predominately utilize plants, the parts of many animal species — such as Tigers Panthera tigris, Leopards Panthera pardus, rhinos Rhinocerotidae spp., musk deer Moschus spp. and bears Ursidae spp., also are used as ingredients. Some of these species are threatened in large part because of their use and trade in a number of traditional medicine systems. This report, for reasons of practicality, focuses on only one of those systems — TCM — examining the availability of parts and products derived from rhino, tigers, leopards, musk deer, and bears, within the two largest Chinatowns in the USA — those in San Francisco and New York City.
