The Saiga once roamed the vast expanse of the Eurasian steppes. But, wouldn't you know it, the saiga has been poached to near extinction because the horns are valuable in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
I'll tell you what, you practitioners and partakers of TCM, I'll carve up some carrots in a fancy spiral pattern, and you can use them to boost your virility, or whatever you use the horns for, and hey, there'll also a tasty addition to any salad.
Thanks for the photo, Ida.
Photo source: Sharenator.com
Jun 5, 2008
Carrot Horns and a Tapir Nose
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7 comments:
Is there anything that Chinese men won't take to improve virility? Are they a nation of limp peckers? Time to join us in the 21st Century.
Thankfully the advent of the unbiased placebo-controlled clinical trial has eliminated the demand for TCM and other CAM modalities.
Oh wait.
:)
It's such a shame that we have all these wonderful and interesting creatures in the world, but so many cultures have so little respect for them and no concept or concern at all about losing those same creatures forever. I once read about a geneticist who had cloned a racing mule or donkey (sorry, can't recall which). I hunted up his email and asked why he didn't turn that marvelous ability to something like white tigers or [pick your animal on the brink of extinction]. He answered that he would... when someone stepped forward to fund it. It always comes down to money. Perhaps we should sculpt the shapes of all our extinct animals out of one dollar bills. Oh my-- stop me now. I'm starting to sound bitter. :-P
Cloning endangered animals is pretty controversial though. The Audubon Zoo in my lovely hometown of New Orleans has started a library of endangered genetic information, but many scientists criticize them for it. If you clone a bunch of California Condors, you won't have a viable population, you'll just have a bunch of copies of a few condors. Even if you made a 1 for 1 clone of the existing population, you still would have a severely limited gene pool. It's more like a very last resort. Conservation really is the best way.
Very true, but I can't help but think if we start now, cloning one once in awhile (how's that for a scientific term? ::ahem::) from different gene pools, then in some cases maybe we'll have enough to avert extinction. Yes, I'm a dreamer.
But you're not the only one.
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