China's Rich Provide Market For Tiger Skins, Drive Rush To Extinction

[hatrack]

Chinese businessmen and tourists who want tiger skins to decorate their houses are driving the Indian tiger to the brink of extinction, environmentalists from the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said yesterday. A year after an undercover investigation by the agency revealed that hundreds of tiger and leopard skins were openly on sale in the bazaars of Tibet and China, a repeat visit conducted last month showed that nothing had been done to rein in the traders.

Shocking pictures showing the extent of the tiger trade — including a ceremonial religious tent constructed from 108 tiger skins — have apparently failed to force the Chinese authorities to act.

"If anything the enforcement regime against smugglers bringing tiger skins into China from India has actually slackened, probably with the connivance of the authorities," said Belinda Wright, a leading tiger conservationist and director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), in New Delhi yesterday.

"Information gathered from the 2005 investigation was passed directly to the Chinese authorities but they have taken no action whatsoever. Traders are still promising they can get six fresh tiger skins from India every two months." The rise in demand for tiger and leopard skins from wealthy mainland Chinese has driven a catastrophic surge in big cat poaching in India which has halved tiger numbers from 3,600 to as few as 1,500 in the past decade.

EDIT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/28/wtiger28.xml

Just LOVE that market magic - how 'bout you?

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Utterly shameful. These people have no excuse. nt

[YankeyMCC]

2. There are two paths to wealth

Want much and aquire it.

Want little and have all you need.