Donkey skin trade goes global.

What started in China and Africa, is now spreading across the world as Brazil joins in the dirty business of torturing and butchering donkeys to satisfy the Red Chinese ravenous, greedy desire to market ejiao.

    Ejiao is also known as donkey hide glue, DHG, a gelatinous substance, made from boiling the hides of donkeys. 

  An old remedy in China, ejiao is now a new gotta-have-it craved by their general public for a myriad of undocumented cures. In addition to the absence or small presence of the medicinal properties, poor quality DHG is more likely to contain harmful substances such as chromium, lead, mercury, and arsenic. 
 
                   Shan Dong E,  Ejiao E Jiao Colla Corii Asini     Every year in China, four million donkeys are slaughtered for making DHG. The word is out, the Chinese are scouring the world for the hides--legal or black market, and at irresistible prices. 
                             An ongoing investigation is being conducted by the National Donkey Taskforce, a partner to The Donkey Sanctuary UK. They found one compound (now shut down) was slaughtering 250 donkeys A DAY. At another, the driver was bringing in at least 50 donkeys a day. Many are wild donkeys, but in Kenya some are stolen from families who need their animal for farming, wood and water hauling....basic human needs. 

Donkeys awaiting slaughter at a holding compound in Itapetinga, Brazil in September 2018, which has since been closed down. (Picture credit: Frente Nacional de Defesa dos Jumentos)

    They are penned waiting for slaughter with no food or water after traveling miles in unspeakable van conditions. Australia’s role as the eighth largest importer of donkey-hide gelatin (ejiao) was revealed in a  new investigative report released today by Humane Society International Australia
                       WHY?  
All for our obsession for undying youth and miracle cures. And for the greed of the companies making the blood-money bottom-line profits. 

     Products and practices like these are chipping away another little piece of our humanity. Please spread the word. Help stop an underground black market horror story for one of the sweetest animals still running free. 

Newsweek Magazine 
DHG can poison people
Humane Society International
The New York Times
The Donkey Task Force 
The Donkey Sanctuary UK