Donkeys
Donkeys:AGlobalPopulationCollapseforChinese'Ejiao'
Demand for ejiao — a traditional gelatin made from boiled donkey skins — is wiping out donkey populations across Africa, South America and Asia at a rate of roughly 5 million animals a year.
Ejiao
What Is Driving the Demand
Donkeys have been working partners of rural communities for 5,000 years. Across much of Africa and Asia they are the primary means of transport, water-fetching, and small-scale agriculture for hundreds of millions of people — most of them women.
Since around 2010, the explosive global demand for ejiao (阿胶) — a gelatin extracted from boiled donkey hides and marketed in China as a health and beauty supplement — has triggered the largest decline in donkey numbers in recorded history.
The Donkey Sanctuary estimates 5.9 million donkey skins are now needed annually to satisfy ejiao demand. China's own donkey population has collapsed from 11 million in 1992 to under 2 million today. The shortfall is being met by industrial slaughter and theft from rural communities across Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Pakistan, Brazil and beyond — often leaving subsistence farmers unable to fetch water.
Theft and slaughter
How It Plays Out in Rural Communities
Donkey thefts have surged across East Africa, with documented cases of families waking to find their primary livelihood animal stolen overnight. Slaughter is frequently brutal: makeshift abattoirs, hammer blows, and skinning while still conscious.
Because donkeys reproduce slowly (12-month gestation, single foals) and are difficult to farm intensively, the industry is fundamentally an extractive one — sourcing from existing populations until they collapse.
We don't need new arguments to act differently. We need new defaults.
Progress
Africa Pushes Back
In February 2024 the African Union, representing 55 nations, voted unanimously for a 15-year moratorium on the export of donkey skins from the continent — a major win for the Pan-African Donkey Conference, Brooke, and The Donkey Sanctuary.
Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia and others have introduced national bans. China's response will determine whether the trade simply shifts to South America.
Donkeys
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The Donkey Sanctuary estimates 5.9 million donkey skins are now needed annually to satisfy ejiao demand. China's own donkey population has collapsed from 11 million in 1992 to under 2 million today. The shortfall is being met by industrial slaughter and theft from rural communities across Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Pakistan, Brazil and beyond — often leaving subsistence farmers unable to fetch water.
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