Indian Tiger Is on the Brink of Extinction As Poachers Feed Demand in China

NEW DELHI, India — 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 disclosed 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,” a leading tiger conservationist, Belinda Wright, said in New Delhi. “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 to as few as 1,500 in the past decade from 3,600.Earlier this month a provisional census of tigers in Simlipal National Park in eastern India showed that as few as 12 tigers remained against an official count of 102.“Ten of India’s tiger reserves are now in a ‘critical’ state,” Ms. Wright said. “A world without wild tigers, lynx, leopard, and snow leopard is about to become a reality.”Blame is placed squarely at the feet of the Indian and Chinese governments, which, the EIA says, have taken no effective action to crack down on the criminal gangs that are poaching tigers in huge numbers with impunity.An Indian forest officer who used hidden cameras to survey 241 shops in Tibet and China, Nitin Desai, said many of the skins on display showed classic marks of techniques used by Indian poachers.In Linxia, in China’s Gansu Province, the undercover officers were offered one whole tiger skin, 42 whole leopard skins, and nine snow leopard skins.“What was most disturbing was the complete openness with which the traders displayed their wares; they clearly felt under no threat from the authorities,” he said.

Indian Tiger Is on the Brink of Extinction As Poachers Feed Demand in China

Indian Tiger Is on the Brink of Extinction As Poachers Feed Demand in China

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