Tigers are killed for Chinese medicine by Zuzana Moravcova

India's rare Royal Bengal Tiger population has drastically fallen to 1,411. Five years ago, there were estimated only 3,700 of them believed to exist. Rajesh Gopal of Project Tiger, a conservation program launched in the 1970s, thinks that "poaching, loss of quality habitat and prey" are the ones to blame. "There is a lot of hope. The tiger population is capable of bouncing back if the quality of the forests is preserved and there is enough prey," Qureshi said. The main problem is not the quality of the forests, but the fact, that tigers' pelts, claws and bones are unfortunately a very good selling article on the black market, as it is highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine. Today, at least 60 per cent of China's billion-plus inhabitants use medicines of this type. Even though tiger hunting is illegal worldwide and the trade in tiger body parts is banned under a treaty binding 167 countries, including India, people are obviously focused on how much they will make by killing and slaughtering alreday threatened tigers, careless of the law. It is no wonder then that this population has had a great effect on the demand for tiger parts. In many places in China, tiger parts are served as a delicacy at special private banquets, as the use of endangered tiger products and their medicines is considered a symbol of high status and wealth. "Wildlife crime is so entrenched and we are not prepared for it,"said Belinda Wright, head of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

by Zuzana Moravcova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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