Deal sought to revive trade in tiger body parts

May 18, 2007

Ashling O’Connor in Bombay The world’s dwindling tiger population faces an alarming new threat as China tries to legitimise farming the animal for its body parts, conservationists in India said yesterday. A seven-member delegation from China visited Delhi this week to seek support from its neighbour for a proposal that wildlife experts say would lead to the tiger being wiped out in the wild. China is expected to seek an amendment next month to its 14-year ban on trading in tiger parts at an international wildlife convention in the Netherlands. Officials in Beijing are thought to be under pressure from

Chinese tiger farm owners – who have an estimated 4,000 tigers – to create a legal market in farmed parts. Tiger parts, particularly bones, are highly sought after to supply the traditional Chinese medicine market domestically and abroad. Tiger pelts can also fetch large sums from trophy hunters. Demand has caused widespread poaching that has reduced the worldwide population from 100,000 a century ago to 5,000 today. Between 1,500 and 1,800 are estimated to live in India, which is struggling to preserve the population under pressure from poaching and habitat loss through industrialisation. Given that it is home to nearly half the tigers left in the wild, Indian support for China’s motion is crucial. It is the second time that China has lobbied India. Six months ago officials from its state forestry department discussed making farm products distinct from parts procured from wild

tigers. There has been no formal response from the Indian Government, raising fears that it may countenance China’s demands. The Chinese Embassy in Delhi said only that the delegation was discussing “environmental and forestry cooperation”. China committed itself to the ban on trading in tiger parts under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in 1993. The move led to such a reduction in trade that tiger parts are now found in only 3 per cent of traditional medicine shops. India signed up to the convention in 1975. Peter H

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