Illegal Tiger Trade Must End
By Teresa Telecky
US Fish & Wildlife Service
A Siberian tiger
Tigers may soon disappear from the wild unless more effective efforts are made to halt illegal trade. Tiger numbers have decreased dramatically in recent decades due to poaching to supply the illegal trade in tiger parts.
Tiger bones and other parts are used in traditional medicines to treat arthritis and other conditions. And the animals' skins are used as clothing for certain cultural ceremonies and even as decorative objects such as rugs and wall hangings.
Fewer than 5,000 tigers are estimated to remain in the wild in Asia, the only region of the world where they exist. About 100 years ago, there were an estimated 100,000 tigers in the wild.
The five existing tiger subspecies—the Amur, Bengal, Indochinese, South China, and Sumatran—all are critically endangered or endangered throughout their ranges. The Caspian tiger of southwest Asia, the Bali tiger and the Javan tiger all became extinct in the last 50 years of the 20th century.
Today, most wild tigers live in India; smaller populations exist in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian Federation, Thailand and Viet Nam. Tigers have become extinct in at least 10 other countries. At an International Tiger Symposium held in Kathmandu, Nepal, in April 2007, experts from around the world reported that tiger populations remain in decline nearly everywhere.
A Neverending Battle
Wildlife officers in countries where tigers live fight a daily battle against poachers. Recently in Nepal, a wildlife smuggler was sentenced to 15 years in prison and a fine of 100,000 Nepalese Rupees (US$ 1,591)—the maximum fine allowed for a wildlife crime in that country—after being caught in 2005 with five tiger skins, 36 leopard skins, 238 otter skins, and 123 kilograms of tiger bones.
The seizure, the largest of its kind ever made in Nepal, occurred thanks to the hard work and cooperation of two non-governmental organizations—Wildlife Conservation Nepal and the Wildlife Trust of India—and the wildlife authorities at Langtang National Park, Nepal, where the smuggler and his loot were found.
India, home to most of the world’s wild tigers, recorded 130 tigers poached between 1999 and 2004 (as compared to 82 known natural deaths), according to the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
China Drives Demand
Tell China:
Ask China not to reverse its ban on trade in tiger parts. The market for these products must be closed once and for all!
Illegal markets in China drive most tiger poaching and illegal trade. To its credit, China has taken many steps to stem the problem—including—in 1993, the establishment of a ban on the import, export, sale, purchase, transport, carrying and mailing of tiger bone and tiger products. Also in 1993, China’s Ministry of Health annulled the national medicine standard on using tiger bone in prepared Chinese medicine, and the use of tiger bone in external remedies.
China has banned all production and sale of Chinese medicine containing tiger bone and increased legal penalties for smuggling tiger parts.
However, China’s commitment to ending tiger trade is wavering. At the June 2007 meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), China presented a document that stated that the trade ban had not worked as demonstrated by the fact that wild tiger populations were still in decline.
China further stated that the ban "has seriously impacted not only the Chinese traditional culture but also the medicinal treatment and health care of the Chinese people, in particular those in poverty." They argued that tigers should be treated like crocodiles: farmed for their bones and skin.
Indeed, even while banning the tiger trade, China simultaneously allowed tiger breeding farms to start up and flourish. According to China’s 2007 report, there are 5,000 tigers on farms in China with an annual production of 800 animals.
Thousands of individual elements have to work in harmony, timings have to be synchronized to under a billionth of a second, and beams finer than a human hair have to be brought into head-on collision. Today’s success puts a tick next to the first of those steps, and over the next few weeks, as the LHC’s operators gain experience and confidence with the new machine, the machine’s acceleration systems
