|
|
Change Your Life! |
Big seizure of tiger skins and nails in India |
|
News
|
|
|
August 8, 2000
NEW DELHI (AP) - Wildlife agencies reported big seizures of the skins of tigers, leopards and black bucks in India during the past year, India's environment minister said Monday. The agencies recovered 21 tiger skins and 137 nails, 249 leopard skins and 18,000 nails and 221 black buck skins, Minister of State for Environment Babu Lal Marandi said in a statement in Parliament. Indian wildlife agencies are considered to be poorly coordinated to fight an organized crime network poaching tigers and other animals. Most tiger parts are smuggled to China, Japan and southeast Asian countries where they are used in traditional medicine and aphrodisiacs. Half the world's 5,000 to 7,000 tigers live in India, the National Geographic Society estimates, and hundreds have been killed in the past 10 years in the nation's wildlife sanctuaries. In January, a U.N. team representing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species visited a wildlife park in central India. The team suggested the Indian government train and equip a professional force of officers from the police, customs and forest department to fight poaching and the wildlife trade. Intelligence shows that persons engaged in wildlife crime have links to the trafficking of narcotics and weapons. |