Lion - World Animal Protection

More doctors pledge to protect wildlife, thanks to you

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In China, you’ve helped move 313 doctors and five major companies to sign our "Wildlife-friendly Medicine" pledge.

These doctors committed to support herbal alternatives and not to recommend or prescribe any medicine or health products containing wild animal parts to their patients.

Doctors are crucial to influencing consumer behaviour, which can better protect wild animals by reducing the market demand. 

Sadly, substances like lion bone are found in traditional medicine. Synthetic alternatives have been in development but public awareness is low and it’s not yet embraced by many Chinese companies, doctors and the general public.

With your ongoing support, we are changing this to protect wild animals everywhere.

83% of doctors favour wildlife ban

Thanks to you, we worked with Chunyu Doctor – a leading medical care company – to conduct a joint survey on the attitudes of Chinese doctors toward wild animals as medicine.

Based on our research, 83% of traditional medicine doctors would choose herbal medicines that are safer and more effective over medicines made from wild animals.

As a direct result of this collaboration, in September 2020, Chunyu Doctor became the fifth Chinese company to sign the Wildlife-friendly Medicine pledge.

Our medical practitioners initiative

With your help, we launched our Wildlife-friendly Medical Practitioners initiative in 2020 to engage doctors to take action to protect wild animals.

At the end of each seminar, participants were invited to voluntarily sign up to be a wildlife-friendly doctor. This resulted in 313 signups from about 400 doctor participants.

We’ll continue to lecture to doctors, industry experts and scholars to raise awareness on animal welfare and to share the research progress and practice of herbal medicine as an alternative to wildlife medicine.

The focus in 2021

To help bring an end to, not only the cruel lion bone trade, but also the exploitation of other wild animals for food or medicine, we’ll continue to highlight the link between zoonotic diseases, wildlife and biodiversity loss.

Thank you for everything you do to protect lions and other vulnerable wild animals around the world.

Donate to help lions

You can help end the cruel exploitation of lions for financial gain, human entertainment or traditional medicine. Your gift today will change lions' lives and stop the cycle of cruelty by:

  • Educating the public and key stakeholders, driving down demand for lion interactions, hunting and products
  • Ending the legal but cruel lion bone trade
  • Eradicating the captive breeding of lions for commercial use including cub petting and trophy hunting

Donate now to help end the cruel exploitation that captive lions endure. 

Donate now

Doctors are crucial to influencing consumer behaviour, which can better protect wild animals by reducing the market demand.

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