Posted on 18 July
2009 - Police stopped a suspicious looking
taxi at the Hoang Cau Stadium in the Dong
Da District of the city early Thursday and
found a frozen tiger wrapped in several
layers of blankets in the trunk, and 11
kgs of tiger limb bones.
Dr. Dang Tat The, an
expert at the Institute of Ecology and Biological
Resources (IEBR), Vietnam’s CITES Scientific
Authority, identified the animal and bones
as tiger, and speculated that the animal,
which weighed 57 kg, was probably a young
individual that had been recently killed
and that the bones had come from at least
two adult tigers.
The tiger likely was
transported from Central Vietnam, but it
is currently unknown whether the animal
originated in Vietnam, or whether it was
a wild or captive specimen.
“To complete the police
investigation, we call upon the authorities
to carry out DNA testing to help determine
where these tigers came from,” said Nguyen
Dao Ngoc Van, a Senior Projects Officer
at the Ha Noi-based office of TRAFFIC, the
international wildlife trade monitoring
network—a joint programme of WWF and IUCN.
“While the continuing
trade in tigers and tiger parts is of great
concern, the work of the Environmental Police
towards stopping the trade is encouraging
and impressive,” Van said. “Although recently
formed, the police are quickly improving
Vietnam’s capacity to enforce its existing
wildlife trade legislation.”
Two other tiger seizures
have taken place in Hanoi this year; a January
seizure of more than two tonnes of wildlife
products from a store in Dong Da district,
Hanoi that included six tiger skins, and
a February seizure of 23 kgs of frozen tiger
parts, also in Dong Da.
“These seizures show
us just how serious the threat to Asia’s
remaining wild tigers is,” Van said.
Poaching and habitat
decline are major threats
Fewer than 4,000 tigers
remain in the wild, with an estimated population
of only about 50 individuals in Vietnam.
All six tiger sub-species are listed as
Endangered or Critically Endangered on IUCN’s
Red List. Poaching represents a major threat
to the survival of wild tigers. Tiger habitat
is also dwindling at an ever increasing
rate and that which remains is still unprotected.
"We appreciate
the good work of the police in Vietnam in
finding smuggled tiger skins and parts,
said Dr. Susan Lieberman, Director of the
Species Programme, WWF-International. "However,
it is critical that protection of tigers
by anti-poaching patrols and on-the-ground
efforts are greatly increased, so that tigers
are not poached in the first place,"
Dr. Lieberman said.
Tigers are listed in
Appendix I of CITES, strictly prohibiting
any commercial international trade in them
or their derivatives. Although Vietnam is
party to CITES, and has banned all domestic
trade of tigers, the trade in tigers continues
for the use of their bones in traditional
medicines, the consumption of their meat
as a health tonic and as a status symbol,
and the use of their skin for trophy and
decorative purposes.
The seizure comes just
one week after the World Bank announced
it considered any experimentation with tiger
farming too risky and could drive wild tigers
further toward extinction.
