Many Chinese people buy earthworms to use as traditional medicine to treat heart disease, causing the hunting and electrocution of these animals to become increasingly serious.
The practice of electrocuting earthworms has been rampant for about a month now in the provinces of Hoa Binh, Bac Giang, Son La, Tuyen Quang, Bac Giang... Hunters use a device consisting of two sharp sticks connected to a battery or a large capacity battery to stick into the ground, causing all the worms within a square meter to crawl out.
The worms are caught, their internal organs are removed, dried and sold to agents who send them to China for about 600,000 VND per kilogram.
In China, earthworms are called dia long (earth dragon) and have been used as an ingredient in traditional medicine for nearly 2,000 years. The Chinese Pharmacopoeia states that earthworms have the effects of "clearing heat, calming the mind, moistening the lungs, and promoting urination."
The practice of electrocuting earthworms has also recently broken out in some parts of China to sell to traditional Chinese medicine processing facilities, according to a July 2022 report by Xinhua .
Electroshockers say that more and more patients in China suffering from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are using earthworms as medicine. The high demand has led to hundreds of thousands of tons of earthworms being hunted by electroshock in this country.
Dried earthworms, the main ingredient in many traditional Chinese medicines. Photo: Xinhua
Worm hunters use a Dia Long machine, consisting of a battery connected to two sharp sticks, similar to those in Vietnam. Liu Lianxin, a farmer in Shangqiu, Henan Province, who has more than 20 years of experience catching worms, said that worm-catching often blooms in the spring, when earthworms come out.
At those times, the sound of the Earthworm machine echoed throughout the rice fields, vegetable fields, parks, river banks, and even in the forest. Many people watching the modern worm catching technology said their "legs went numb" because of the electricity.
In the hot summer with little rain, the worms burrow deeper into the ground, but there are still groups of people using Earth Dragon machines to dig for worms. They usually work at night, carrying lamps, buckets, and wearing boots. A friend of Liu Lianxin complained to her, "I've searched all around my house recently but haven't found any worms."
Worm catchers appeared not only in Henan, but also in Suzhou in Anhui Province, Xuzhou in Jiangsu Province, the mountainous region between Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces, the primeval forests in Guizhou and Yunnan, and the rubber forests in Hainan.
Earthworm users can catch hundreds of pounds of fresh worms every day, then clean the organs and dry them. For every 10 pounds of fresh worms, one pound of dried worms can be sold for about 180-240 yuan ($25-$33), depending on the type and quality.
More than 20 years ago, when Liu Yulian first started her career, she used a hoe to dig for worms, used a razor blade to cut open their bellies, and then dried them on the brick yard. At that time, the price of dried worms was about 20 yuan/kg.
"I can dig up 20 kg of worms a day but I don't earn much, so few people do this job," said Ms. Luu.
But over the past 20 years, the price of earthworms has increased tenfold. In 2021, dried earthworms reached 275 yuan ($38) per kilogram, as market demand skyrocketed.
Bozhou City, Anhui Province, is known as the “capital of Chinese medicinal herbs” and is the world’s largest market for Chinese medicinal herbs. Mr. Chen, a trader in Bozhou, said he buys wild earthworms from Guangxi, Sichuan, Anhui, and Henan, then sells them to pharmaceutical factories.
According to 2021 data, more than 57% of earthworms sold on the market are used for pharmaceutical factories, traditional medicine pharmacies import about 28.5%, the rest are used in the export and functional food sectors.
China has 40 pharmaceutical products containing earthworms, typically cough medicines, chest pain medicines, and anti-inflammatory tablets. The facility that uses the most earthworms is a pharmaceutical company in Shaanxi, which produces cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drugs, including brain-lung-lung capsules.
China’s cardiovascular disease report released last year showed that two out of every five deaths in the country in 2021 were due to cardiovascular disease. The incidence of cardiovascular disease in China has also been steadily increasing, with an estimated 330 million patients.
"The rapidly aging population and increasing demand for cardiovascular drugs have led to a continuous increase in the demand for earthworms in the past 10 years," said Gu Haibin, a data analyst at the traditional Chinese medicine platform Tiandiyuntu. "Data shows that the demand for earthworms in the pharmaceutical market increased from 400 tons in 2010 to 675 tons in 2020."
A representative of a pharmaceutical company in Bozhou, Anhui, said that compared to 10 years ago, the amount of earthworms used in pharmaceutical production has increased by 70-80%. The company mainly produces tablets and granules for hospitals and pharmacies. The company also advertises that it only uses wild earthworms, not farmed ones.
The 2020 edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia states that the four types of "earthworms" used for medicinal purposes are Pheretima aspergillum, Pheretimavulgaris, Pheretima guillelmi, and Pheretima pectinifera. The cultivated worm Eudrilus eugeniae is not used in traditional Chinese medicine, but is mainly used in the aquaculture industry.
Sun Zhenjun, a professor of ecology at China Agricultural University who has studied earthworms for more than 30 years, said that the four natural earthworm species in the country are "too wild" to be bred or raised on a large scale, despite the high demand.
This is why the Earthworm Machine was born, when more and more people rushed to catch worms for economic benefits. Professor Ton said he started to pay attention to the appearance of the worm machine in 2013, when the price of earthworms reached 150 yuan/kg (21 USD).
Ms. Liu said she gave up the manual method of digging for worms and switched to using the Earthworm machine because of its "high efficiency" and even switched to selling this type of machine. Traders believe that hunting earthworms is "a way to get rich in the countryside", calling earthworms "gold born in the countryside".
Electric shock device for hunting earthworms. Photo: The Paper
However, hunting earthworms by electrocution also causes many serious consequences for biodiversity and the ecological environment. In the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, due to overexploitation of earthworm resources in recent years, the earthworm resources have been decreasing year by year.
Wan Quan, a worm hunter in Xuchang, Henan Province, moved his operations to Xueshan Town, Weining County, Guizhou Province, in 2021, where there are many worms, because of the "good environment and many hills".
Van brought the Dia Long machine to Tuyet Son and gave it away for free to the locals so they could go up the mountain and stimulate the worms, then bring them back to sell to him. Van also hired them to cut open the worms' bellies, clean them, and dry them.
Li Ai, a prosecutor in Weining County, said he had never seen such a large-scale earthworm hunting movement. Since mid-2021, traders have been flocking to Weining with worm-catching machines, causing concern among locals and forest rangers.
Later that year, the Uy Ninh District Procuratorate decided to save earthworms by suing those involved in the worm hunting industry on the grounds of "ensuring public interests".
In early 2022, Li Ai visited many places in the county to collect information for lawsuits related to earthworm hunting. However, this prosecutor commented that the effort to "save the worms" was very difficult without the cooperation of the people.
"They think there are worms everywhere underground, and digging them up won't have any effect," said Ly Ai. "During the investigation, many people told us that the law doesn't prohibit it, so the authorities have no right to stop them from catching worms."
Li Ai and colleagues reviewed the Wildlife Protection Law, Environmental Protection Law, Agricultural Law, Land Management Law... but "did not find any specific regulations prohibiting the hunting of earthworms. This species is also not on the list of animals in need of protection".
The Uy Ninh Procuracy invited relevant departments such as the police, environmental protection, forestry, and agriculture to hold a workshop, but could not reach a final conclusion on how to handle this activity.
"Representatives from all agencies said that no place has ever handled worm catching cases and imposed penalties such as fines, detention or confiscation of tools," said Ly Ai.
While authorities are looking for a solution, Professor Ton is concerned that the decline in earthworm resources will have a major impact on the soil.
"If everyone rushes to hunt for worms, the quality of the soil will be affected. Without worms, fields will no longer have loose, nutritious soil to grow food," he said. "This not only affects earthworms, but also other organisms in the soil such as insects, mites, and spiders."
He said that in addition to hunting, the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and herbicides also increased soil pollution, reducing the number of natural earthworms. Earthworms growing in these areas are at risk of being contaminated with heavy metals and cannot be used as traditional medicine.
"In fact, all sectors have responsibilities and obligations to protect biodiversity. We often think that protecting biodiversity is the responsibility of a certain agency," said an expert with many years of experience in the field of environmental protection.
He warned that if industries using earthworms do not realize this, the development of traditional Chinese medicine will be blocked.
An earthworm drying facility in Weining, Guizhou Province. Photo: Xinhua
Wan Quan also heard about the harmful effects of using electric shock to hunt earthworms. This trader recently went to Shaanxi to find a new source of earthworms, but plans to open an earthworm farm in the future.
"If the government ever bans the use of electric shocks to catch earthworms, I will stop immediately," Van Tuyen said. "We have to find another way, because earthworms are a scarce product."
Hong Hanh (According to Xinhua )
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