Pizzle fizzle wilts New Zealand trade with China

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041003/323/f3tv9.html


WELLINGTON (AFP) - A once keenly sought New Zealand export to China is facing its stiffest test as the deer pizzle trade faces growing competition from anti impotency drugs.

About 200,000 of the deer penises, complete with testicles, were sold to China each year, but the market was gradually declining, Murray Hamer, Oriental trade manager for the Alpine Deer Group said Sunday.

"For a long time men believed that the larger the pizzle, the stronger their own would be," he said.

"The belief in the sexual vigour of pizzles is slowly dying out. Modern Chinese men believe they don't work. They have turned to the Chinese version of Viagra and are getting results."

The pizzles were generally served in a soup, after being boiled for hours with herbs. Sometimes, a three-pizzle soup was made, from deer, snake and seal pizzles and served in slices.

Asked if he had tried pizzle soup, Hamer said, yes "but it was simply awful".

Hamer, whose company exports a variety of other deer parts to China, declined to reveal the worth of the market on commercial grounds.