For example, Asiatic bears are now on the list of endangered animals due to the fact that the Chinese population restrictively cages them in farms and gives them little to no food or water. Because the Chinese believe that the bile from the bear's gallbladder has healing power, they extract it for the use of curing headache, kidney stones, cirrhosis, and it has been lately used in shampoo and as an aphrodisiac. Furthermore, animals such as the Black Rhino (whose horns are ground into powder for use as a fever-reducing agent in traditional oriental medicines and is carved into dagger handles in the Middle East) and the African Elephant (whose ivory tusks have been hunted for centuries) are declining sharply due to human wants. Very little has been done to reverse the mass hunting of animals, although there are a few noted instances of the national community joining together to resolve this issue. For instance, in order to control the hunting that was quickly bringing many species of whale onto the list of endangered species, an international whaling convention was organized in 1946. From this, the International Whaling Commission was created and, through it, a scientific committee was set up in order to monitor the whale population and dub species "protected" if they have dwindling populations . Although this step was an initial start, further decreasing populations forced the IWC to prohibit, in 1982, commercial whaling indefinitely. Although the mass hunting of certain species is a large factor in extinction, one other, major threat to the animal population comes from the loss of a species' natural habitat. The rainforest itself is home to over 50% of all species, yet we are losing 33.8 million acres of rainforest each year. Animals such as the Jaguar and the Colocolo are now endangered because of the loss of rainforest. Furthermore, rainforest destruction amounts to the extinction of four species per hour and one hundred species per ...
