(JP)Illegal importer netted with antelope products

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http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20010709p2a00m0fp008002c.html

 

Illegal importer netted with antelope products

 

The president of a women's wear retail business who

illegally marketed antelope products was arrested,

police said Monday.

 

Under the Washington Convention and domestic law,

trading in antelope products is banned because the

animal is on the verge of extinction.

 

However, the soft touch of antelope hair remains

popular and some 20,000 antelopes, which live in the

Chinese and Indian highlands, are poached annually,

officials of the World Wide Fund for Nature's Japan

branch said.

 

National Police Agency officials said that Hirotaka

Sakai, 46, president of the company in Tokyo's

Shibuya-ku, was busted for marketing at least two

shawls using antelope fur. Each of the shawls was

priced at 420,000 yen but had not been sold, police

said.

 

Officials say a crackdown on antelope poaching is

necessary because their numbers have dropped to an

estimated 75,000 now from 1 million at the dawn of the

20th century.

(Mainichi Shimbun, July 9, 2001)

 

 

 

 

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