The growing demand for ejiao — donkey gelatin used in traditional Chinese medicine — is depleting donkey populations globally and threatening the livelihoods of communities dependent on working donkeys.
Donkeys acquired for the skin trade in informal markets are frequently bought from rural owners, transported long distances in overcrowded vehicles, and slaughtered in facilities with minimal welfare infrastructure. The killing methods used in informal slaughterhouses vary widely but often involve prolonged bleeding without prior stunning. Working donkeys taken from rural communities are replaced — if at all — by animals that have not been trained and socialised, reducing their welfare and utility. The economic incentive created by ejiao demand has driven criminal donkey theft, with the associated welfare harms of hurried transport and informal killing. The community welfare dimension — loss of essential working animals — compounds the individual animal welfare harms.