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 TradeTraditional Medicine Trade: Dolphins and Seals Ganges River Dolphins (Platanista gangetica) of the Ganges and Brahmaputra River systems in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, are extremely rare throughout their range, with a total population that may number only about 2,000. In Nepal, where there are fewer than 100 animals, fishermen net them to sell their flippers for the TM trade which uses the bone for gastric problems. Appendix I listing has not stopped trade because Chinese authorities have failed to enforce it strictly. It is listed as Endangered on the 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Once common in the Amazon and Orinoco River systems from eastern Brazil to the Andes of Peru and Bolivia, Pink or Amazon River Dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) have disappeared from most of this region. A 1995 film, “Legend of the Pink Dolphin,” on National Geographic Explorer, depicted the species as threatened or endangered in all but the most inaccessible areas and described the bizarre trade in its body parts. A book on the subject, Journey of the Pink Dolphins. An Amazon Quest (Montgomery 2000), is an in-depth study of the people and their relationship with these dolphins. Shantytowns established on riverbanks built when forest clearance forced many people out of their traditional regions, have been the center of the illegal hunting of these dolphins. Many of the residents of these towns kill the gentle Pink Dolphins for their body parts, which are considered magical. Some fishermen drown them on purpose, and others accidentally. Many people in the Amazon believe that these dolphins can impregnate women, and others buy body parts, such as the left eye, penis, teeth and head, as good luck charms. Entire baby dolphins are sold in these towns as charms. Roxanne Kramer, an American biologist who has studied these animals since 1984, has become an active conservationist on their behalf. She found jars of Pink Dolphin eyes being sold in local villages for $1.50 per eye in 1995, and estimates that in Brazil alone, more than 100 Pink Dolphins are killed a month just for their left eyes, considered to have magical properties. Dolphin corpses that have been mutilated now wash up on riverbanks their heads removed. Roxanne and another biologist, Fernando Trujillo, have conducted separate campaigns to persuade local people not to kill these dolphins, but at the present rate of loss, they may soon disappear altogether.
The decline in the seal hunt in Canada will mean a decrease in extreme cruelty that has been documented by various witnesses. The Earth Island Institute's Journal reports that in a 1994 hunt, seal pups' skulls were crushed, they were strangled with nooses, and in one case, a mother Harp Seal was beaten with the body of her screaming pup. When Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society protested the hunt in early 1995 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence's Magdalen Islands, 150 angry sealers broke down the door to his hotel room. He was saved by police, who rushed him into a police cruiser, according to wire service accounts. Other seals, such as South African Fur Seals (Arctocephalus pusillus), are killed both for their pelts, which are sold to European furriers, and their penises for the TM trade. As described above, many thousands of young male seals are killed each year. Hopefully, this hunt will decline as well.
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