# Viagra knocks elk antlers out of aphrodesiac market



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

'Love potion' loser: Viagra knocks elk antlers out of aphrodesiac market

http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-33/1135266653268160.xml&coll=5

DAVISON TOWNSHIP THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Thursday, December 22, 2005 By Chad Swiatecki
[email protected]  810.766.6237

DAVISON TWP. - The little blue pill hasn't given local elk ranchers much to feel peppy about. 

The popularity of Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug, has helped cripple a once-thriving elk farm market. 

Elk antlers, ground into pills, were once heavily sought after in Asian countries because they were believed to be an aphrodesiac, along with helping joint pain and increasing energy. That helped lead to the Davison area being an elk mecca for much of the 1990s, with close to a dozen farms with several hundred animals each.

Once Viagra came on the scene with its faux-romantic commercials and media jokes, the elk didn't stand a chance. 

"It all went downhill because of Viagra," said Dennis Salsgiver, a Davison Township farmer who recently sold his elk. 

Sales of the "velvet" elk antlers started dropping in nations such as South Korea in the late '90s, around the time Viagra began to surge in popularity. 

Incidents of chronic wasting disease - the elk equivalent of Mad Cow disease - also caused countries to close their borders to North American elk and dropped velvet antler prices more than 90 percent. 

The devaluation - antlers used to fetch up to $100 per pound but now bring in only $8 per pound - has left only two or three elk farms in the area, with much smaller herds. 

"They sold so much when it was marketed as something to increase the sex drive and everyone started to get into it," said Doug Roberts, a Davison Township farmer who parted with his herd of more than 300 elk seven years ago. 

"There were so many people involved in the market that things got kind of inflated and you got crazy prices for everything from antlers to breeding animals."

Antlers were especially lucrative because they grow back every year, meaning a farmer could make between $2,000 and $5,000 per animal annually for perhaps a decade. 

Leaders of a national elk group are reluctant to discuss antlers' role as an aphrodisiac and downplay the male-enhancement factor in causing the market to wither. 

"It increases health, and (sex drive) goes along with that, but that whole aspect got played up to become kind of a myth or folklore," said Ted Winters, president of the Missouri-based North American Elk Breeders Association, which has lost more than half its membership in the last five years.

"What hurt us the most was the regulations that states put on because of (wasting disease) that keep us from transporting over state lines. Elk antler has been popular in Asia for thousands of years, but it's never caught on here like over there." 

Dale's Natural Foods in Flint Township stocks only one supplement with elk antlers, a $22 bottle of 30 tablets made to promote balance, relieve joint pain and promote overall health. 

"There's never been a big market for it here," store manager Deb Gustafson said. 

"I've heard it called an aphrodisiac and that Viagra made it less popular. I always thought that was a weird connection." 

But it's a real one, said Craig Stefanko, a Davison Township farmer and developer who teamed with other elk ranchers in 1999 to try to market and promote the health benefits of antlers. 

After the market crashed, Stefanko reduced his herd from 300 to around 125. He now allows game hunters to go after his elk, whose racks can grow up to 50 inches wide. 

"It really started to go down once Korea stopped buying them, but there was always that (aphrodisiac) connection," Stefanko said. 

"You could tell the difference after you took it that it had a Viagra effect, and you definitely had more bristles in the brush."


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