This shy species joins the elite club

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The Hindu, Delhi,Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Link: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/16/stories/2005111613200100.htm

 

 

This shy species joins the elite club

 

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

 

NEW DELHI: The slender, gazelle-like Tibetan antelope -- chiru --

relentlessly hunted for its wool has been selected as one of the

five official mascots for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games.

 

And Indian conservationists, many of who had queued up to sign the

petition urging the Olympic Committee to adopt the chiru as the

mascot earlier this year, have welcomed the move to create awareness

about the need to protect this shy and endangered animal.

 

The chiru will now join the `Five Friendlies' -- the fish, the

panda, the swallow and the Olympic flame. The Olympic Committee in

China made the announcement about the selection this past Friday.

 

To win this coveted position, the chiru competed with a dozen other

contenders, including the tiger, the red-crowned crane and the

dragon. " The selection will certainly draw more attention to the

animals' endangered status worldwide. This is significant because

the chiru was hunted for its wool to weave shahtoosh shawls that are

allegedly still in demand among some elite sections of society in

India and abroad.

 

The Olympic slogan of " One World, One Dream " may well hold hope for

coexistence of the species with inspiration from the Five

Friendlies,'' said Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) executive director

Vivek Menon.

 

Stating that selection of the chiru will enable conservation

organisations to draw attention of policy makers to its status, WTI

vice-chairman Ashok Kumar said: " A joint campaign, " Say No To

Shahtoosh " , is in its fourth year now in India, resulting in

significant reduction in demand for shahtoosh shawls. Enforcement of

the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, is now a priority after having

created awareness on the illegal status of shahtoosh trade. The

WTI's enforcement division is waiting to crack down on traders and

individuals found flouting the law.''

 

Earlier, a joint investigation with the International Fund for

Animal Welfare and WTI found that the shahtoosh wool was smuggled

into India and is woven into shawls in Jammu and Kashmir.

 

Chiru is native to the Tibetan plateau region, primarily in China,

and its undercoat consists of shahtoosh (Persian for " king of

wools''), which is the softest, warmest wool in the world. The fibre

measures 9-12 microns in diameter -- 1/5th that of a human hair.

Shahtoosh shawls are so fine they can be threaded through a wedding

ring, earning them the nickname `ring shawls'.