Pop a pill and save a rhino

FOR YEARS NOW, preservationists have been pleading and preaching in a failed attempt to get humans to stop slaughtering exotic and increasingly rare animals whose organs are believed to increase sexual potency. But it hasn’t worked. Poachers risk bullets, handcuffs and steep fines for the profits from rhinoceros horns, tiger penises or the eggs of endangered sea turtles, all wrongly believed to enhance male sexual performance or desire.

It’s time for a new approach. Let’s turn people on to drugs. How do you say “Viagra” in Chinese? Would making Viagra, Levitra, Cialis or other pharmaceutical alternatives affordable around the world cause the demand for animal-based aphrodisiacs or sexual remedies to falter?

The alternative is grim. Many of the endangered animals targeted by poachers are “charismatic megafauna” -- mammals such as tigers, bears or seals, whose beauty or behavior elicits humans’ sympathy or awe. Other creatures, such as the lowly sea cucumber or the majestic and critically endangered African black rhinoceros, are unlucky enough to have characteristics that strike humans as suggestive.

Scientific research has failed to find any benefit to either sexual desire or performance from the animal products used in these traditional medicines. Hope springs eternal for effective aphrodisiacs -- and perpetual motion machines, for that matter -- but the only likely value of these animal products stems from a placebo effect. With the possible exception of testosterone supplements, Western medicine also offers little help in stimulating sexual desire.

On the other hand, as every TV viewer knows, brighter prospects exist for treating impotency -- re-branded these days as erectile dysfunction. So it’s a good bet that we can reduce the demand for potency aids derived from tigers, seahorses and Philippine fruit bats by increasing the supply of low-cost pharmaceutical alternatives in countries where many of these animals are hunted and consumed.

Enforcing laws against poaching and illegal trade remains vital in the short run. A future change in consumer preferences couldn’t help the 1,200 endangered freshwater turtles that were seized and released by police in Colombia in April.

Still, a conservation policy that relies mainly on policing is doomed to fail. But a strategy of making erectile dysfunction drugs cheap and widely available, combined with education, is at least worth trying. Such programs could make strange bedfellows, for lack of a better word, of governments, environmental groups and pharmaceutical companies. Erectile dysfunction medications could be subsidized or given away, perhaps along with condoms and information on reproductive health.

The limited evidence available to date is promising. A 2002 study in the journal Environmental Conservation found that in Hong Kong, since the introduction of Viagra in 1998, apothecaries’ demand for comparably priced animal products used in traditional impotency treatments had fallen by more than half.

It won’t be a cure-all. Consumer habits are difficult to change, and some men believe that erectile dysfunction medications should be “boosted” with small amounts of animal products. Moreover, we men are reluctant to admit the waning of our powers; some don’t want to seek medical treatment and prefer to deal with traditional or clandestine sales networks. Cultural taboos about sex complicate discussion of exactly why tigers or reindeer are being hunted -- and why Viagra is a better bet.

Viagra and its cousins should be advertised explicitly as an alternative to animal-based impotence remedies. Current international campaigns against trade in endangered species feature celebrities who are mostly young and in great shape -- or airbrushed to look that way. I can’t entirely relate. We need culturally and demographically appropriate appeals. How about commercials showing an ordinary, middle-aged couple holding hands, and a caption like, “Saving a rhinoceros isn’t the only reason they’re smiling.” And campaigns aimed at younger consumers could portray rhino horns as potions for the elderly and pharmaceutical solutions as globally chic.

Swaggering appeals to masculinity couldn’t hurt, either. If an aging tough guy like Clint Eastwood -- or his Indian equivalent -- says it’s more manly to take a pill than to eat macaque derivatives, he has a good chance of being listened to. The National Institute of Mental Health’s “Real Men. Real Depression” campaign offers an example that could be adapted to meet the needs of regular guys in other cultures. In the course of protecting endangered animals and their habitats, we might find out what kind of animal we can truly be.