Trade in animal parts biggest threat to wildlife in Asia – Study
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — A rampant trade in rhino horns, bear paws and other parts of rare animals prized as gourmet delicacies and traditional medicines is the single greatest threat to wildlife in Asia, an international conservation group warned last Tuesday.
The extinction of species hunted for their parts or captured by traffickers in exotic animals is a real, not theoretical problem, said a statement by Wildlife Conservation Society, which is based at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.
The statement summarised the findings of a four-day meeting held last week in Thailand by the society’s field staff from nine Asian countries and experts from its New York headquarters.
Global trafficking in wildlife is worth an estimated $8 billion annually, a scale surpassed only by the illegal international trade in drugs and weapons, said the society, which urged governments in Asia to protect their wildlife by passing tougher laws, strengthening their environment and improving education.
Parts and meat from threatened species — including rhino horns, tiger skin, bear paws and snake flesh — are valued in many Asian countries as gourmet food are ingredients for traditional Chinese medicines and aphrodisiacs.
The Wildlife Conservation Society said that hunting has put half of Asia’s turtles on the endangered species list and threatens the existence of tigers and their prey across the continent.
“In these areas if hunting persists we will see a huge wave of extinction in the next two decades,” Joshua Ginsberg, director of the society’s Asia and Africa programmes, was quoted as saying.
Over one million kilograms (2.2 million pounds) of snakes are imported to Shanghai, China, annually and served as a luxury food, the statement said.
An international trade in exotic birds is the best documented part of the illegal global trafficking of wildlife, it said. More than 350,000 birds are sold every year in Indonesia’s capital.
The statement detailed the increasing impact of the wildlife trade in Asia.
Twelve large mammals and birds have been hunted to extinction in Vietnam since the end of the Indochina war. Indonesia’s Sumartran and Java rhinos and Thailand’s Siamese crocodiles are nearly extinct. Over a ton of water snakes are harvested every day in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake to feed crocodiles in nearby farms.
