Pop Viagra and save a rhino

This Op-ed in the Los Angeles Times has some very real suggestions on how to stop the demand for, and poaching of, endangered species, whose body parts are thought to offer sexual remedies: Pop Viagra and save a rhino: Impotence drugs could replace useless but popular animal-based aphrodisiacs.

According to the World Wildlife Fund:

In 1989, you could walk into a traditional medicine shop in China and find rhino horn offered for as much as $7,400 per kilogram. Rhino horns are valuable ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM. Contrary to popular belief, rhino horn derivatives are not used as aphrodisiacs. Considered a powerful heat-reducing medicine, rhino horn is used to treat fever, delirium, high blood pressure, and other ailments.

In Asian countries, Yemen is also responsible for the decline in the rhino population, but for a different reason:

In the Middle East country of Yemen, rhino horns are carved into ceremonial dagger handles known as jambiyas. Before rhinos were protected from international trade, Yemen was the world's largest consumer of rhino horn, importing more than 6,000 pounds (2700 kilograms) every year - about 40 percent of the total rhino horn in trade at that time. In 1982 the government of Yemen banned the import of rhino horn, but even in the mid-1990s as much as 150 pounds (330 kilograms) of horn were being smuggled into the country each year

The World Wildlife Fund is working with Traditional Chinese Medicine Communities to help reduce the demand for endangered species. Go here to help support its work.