What Meat Or Animal Substance Won’t The Chinese Plunder For Medicinal Properties?

“Dammit, the Chinese think I can help cure indigestion from shark fin soup.”

Apparently, the answer is not scaly anteater:

A Chinese vessel that ran aground on a protected Philippine coral reef was found to contain more than 20,000 pounds of meat from the scaly anteater, a protected species prized for its supposed medicinal qualities.

The ship hit an atoll on April 8 on Palawan Island, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site. An additional search of the boat Sunday revealed 400 boxes, each containing between 25 to 30 kilograms of frozen anteaters. An international ban on trading scaly anteaters took effect in 2002, but illegal trade continues as the meat and scales of the animals are valued at over a hundred dollars per kilogram in China.

Billions of Chinese, plus a culture that seeks medicinal relief from all manner of animal parts, is not a good combination.

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