Rex Trulove
Hundreds of years ago, there was a large and thriving population of European beavers (Castor fiber) in the UK Europe and Asia. There were literally hundreds of thousands of them. However, they were nearly brought to extinction, not for their meat or fur, but because of a medicine that hadn’t even been invented yet.
Both European beavers and their larger cousin, American beavers, have anal sacks located at the base of the tail near the anus, that contain a substance known as castoreum. The beavers use this to mark territories and it plays a part in attracting mates. Somewhere along the line, someone discovered that castoreum had the ability to alleviate pain, reduce swelling, and help treat fevers. Castoreum quickly became a natural “miracle medication” that was highly sought after.
This led to the slaughter of many thousands of beavers, including American beavers, though in the case of American beavers, conservation efforts were put into place early on. By the early 1900s, there were only about 1,200 European beavers remaining. With a little help from mankind, who caused the problem, to begin with, the European beavers are recovering and have been restored to many parts of their former range, including the UK. They still aren’t popular in many places because of their propensity to chew down trees and to dam up flowing water.
So what was the undiscovered medicine that made castoreum sought after? Among other things, castoreum contains methoxysalicylic acid; a substance that is very similar, both chemically and in effects, to acetylsalicylic acid. Today, we know acetylsalicylic acid as “aspirin”. Acetylsalicylic acid was actually in use for pain, swelling, and fevers long before the beavers were slaughtered, though, and long before aspirin was invented. Salicylic acid is a chemical found in the inner bark and leaves of all trees and bushes in the willow family.
Incidentally, although the European beaver is now protected, there is still a demand for castoreum, to the tune of over $5 per ounce, and it is used in perfume and as a food additive.
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Did you ever hear of castoreum and how the demand for it nearly caused the extinction of the European beaver?
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Yes
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No
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I think that you explained the situation very well. Write more posts like this.
I’ll see what I can do. 😀
Did not know this about the beaver. Interesting Rex!
It was also what started the westward expansion in the US. The number of beavers in Europe was dropping, but the demand was still high. Trappers in the US moved west to trap beavers for the Hudson Bay Company, and those were then shipped to Europe. Had it not been for that, it would have taken longer for western US and Canada to be explored and colonized.
You might be interested in this link since I see the beaver problem continues in Riga.
https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/riga-buys-off-beavers-to-prevent-them-terrorizing-capital.a273054/
Thank you for this very interesting and informative post, I had never heard about this, Glad the beavers survived. They must have then gone to Riga, Latvia because I remember one year there was a crises of too many beavers making dams in the Riga Canal that goes throughout the whole city and they had to be caught and brought elsewhere,
My suggestion for that gov’t would be to live-trap them and allow them to be released elsewhere, where they are less likely to cause damage.
I had never heard of castoreum but of course have heard of ASA. Yes it is too bad that animals and their organs have been and actually and still being used for medicinal purposes. The Chinese are still notorious for this. With all the chemicals and pharmaceutical paraphernalia there is today, animals should not be still subjected to this and definitely not used as lab rats… Thanks for this great post.
I agree about the animals. Rhinos and Elephants are going downhill fast, because of folk medicine demand. Game wardens are getting smart and removing the tusks and horns since neither is needed for survival. Unfortunately, in the case of rhinos, the horns grow back. Still, if an elephant doesn’t have tusks and a rhino doesn’t have horns, there is no reason to kill it for the folk medicine trade.
There is evidence that many elephants are now being born without tusks because of the poaching
Very interesting post, something that I never knew about before. Maybe I will use this article for my advanced English students.
That’s a great idea! In order to know about castoreum, they would need to do some research, though it isn’t hard to do. The same about acetylsalicylic acid. As an added benefit, they might learn a little history.