Lu Rong

[Guest guest]

Hi! I am new to this list. My name is Hillary Morris and I am located in NYC. I am a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist.

In my practice, I use no animal products. This includes Lu Rong. There are a couple of theories about Lu Rong and how it is harvested. My herbs teacher, Craig Mitchell (who recently translated the Shang Han Lun) told me that Lu Rong is collected from antlers that are shed by deer. Indeed, deer do shed their antlers every year, so it is possible that some guy walks around in the forest looking for shedded antlers. Somehow, this seems unlikely. Another possibility is that the deer are farmed and kept in enclosures, so finding their shed antlers is that much easier.

I did some internet research on this question and found smoething called the Deer and Elk Procedures Manual from the Canadian agriculture society. In most other Western countries I imagine the _standards_, if not the _reality_ is similar. It requires the sedation of bulls prior to removal of the antlers. It requires that antlers be cut with "a clean and sharp saw" and that "hemorrhaging from severed blood vessels be controlled". Deer are farmed or "harvested" from the wild.

 

Now, this is what takes place in _ideal_ conditions in a _western_ country. One can imagine what takes place when deer antlers are harvested in China.

 

Speaking of cruelty in obtaining products, read more about bear bile and how it is obtained at http://www.wspa.org.uk/campaigns/bearfarming/index.html