Abstract
In the past, Musk and Tiger Bone Plaster (Tiger Bone Plaster for shorter) was one of most common nonprescription Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Since 1993, China banned all trade in tiger bones and its derivatives in 1993. Musk deer were up-listed as Category I State Key Protected Wild Animal Species in China in 2002. The plaster manufactures changed the prescription of Tiger Bone Plaster and used synthetic musk and herb medicines and changed the name of Tiger Bone Plaster to “Musk and Bone Strengthening Plaster” but packages of some brands of the plasters still carry a tiger’s image on it. Thus, consumers still consider the plasters as “Tiger Bone Plaster” because of the tiger image on the package. To investigate the consumer perception and behaviors of “Musk and Bone Strengthening Plaster”, we surveyed 418 citizens in Beijing in 2014. We found that 43.78% of respondents alleged that they had used “Tiger Bone Plaster”. When we inquired, almost all of respondents confirmed that the plasters they had used were “Musk and Bone Strengthening Plaster”. Presumably, tiger’s image on the plaster package produces a conditional stimulus to the consumers. Consumers preferred buying the plasters packed with tiger’s image printed on the package. In fact, no people had really consumed Tiger Bone Plaster in this investigation. For the sake of protecting tigers, we argue the manufacturers to remove the tiger image from the “Musk and Bone Strengthening Plaster” according to the regulations of CITES.
Highlights
Due to the habitat loss and fragmentation, coupled with depletion in prey and continued illegal poaching, the tiger habitat has shrunk by as much as 41% during the past 10 years and wild tigers occur in just 7% of their history range [1]
The results showed that a total of 43.78% respondents (418) alleged that they had used “Tiger Bone Plasters”. 97.81% (179) of the users claimed that they had found a tiger’s image printed on the package of “Tiger Bone Plasters” that they had used
Only 1.64% (3) user alleged that the plasters they had used were “Tiger Bone Plaster”, they were unsure whether the products used contain tiger ingredients
Summary
Due to the habitat loss and fragmentation, coupled with depletion in prey and continued illegal poaching, the tiger habitat has shrunk by as much as 41% during the past 10 years and wild tigers occur in just 7% of their history range [1]. Illegal trade in tiger bones for traditional medicine and skins for ornamentation and collection are threats to wild tigers [2,3,4,5]. Musk and Tiger Bone Plaster (Tiger Bone Plaster for shorter) was one of most common non-prescription Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for treating traumatic injure and rheumatism in TCM market. In 1993 China banned all trade of tiger bones and the plaster manufactures stopped using tiger bone and musk as ingredients of the Tiger Bone Plaster, which was renamed the “Musk and Bone Strengthening Plaster” [8]. Plaster manufactures instead used synthetic musk and herb medicines in the “Musk and Bone Strengthening Plaster” ever since. Of 663 pharmacies and shops in 26 cities, only 3% claimed they supply of tiger bones [4]
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