Hundreds of Endangered Animal Skins Seized in Tibet

BEIJING, China, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - Police and customs officers have caught smugglers with the largest stash of illegal furs intercepted in more than 50 years, according to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.

Hundreds of skins of endangered species such as tigers and leopards were discovered Thursday night in a truck traveling from Nepal into China.

Three Tibetans and two Nepalese were arrested after officers stopped and searched the vehicle as it transited a pass through mountainous Ngamring county.

The seizure of 1,276 furs included 32 tiger skins, 579 leopard skins, and 665 otter pelts, Xinhua reported. Customs officers placed a value of 6.52 million yuan (US$787,000) on the furs.

Li Jianwen, an officer from the regional customs department, was quoted as saying that most of the animals had been shot. He called it the largest single seizure of endangered animal products in the region since 1951.

Officials are undertaking a further investigation of the case.

Tiger skins like this were seized by police and customs officials. (Photo credit unknown)

Tiger bone sells on the streets of Taiwan at US$3,250 per kilogram, about one-fourth the price of gold. There are eight to 10 kilograms of bone per tiger, so one poached animal can bring in $30,000 from the bones alone, according to Tibet's Central Tibetan Administration, the government in exile of H.H. the Dalai Lama, which has prepared fact sheets on Tibet's endangered species.

The clouded leopard is on Tibet's endangered species list. Found at altitudes up to 2,165 meters (6,500 feet) in the evergreen rainforests of Southeast Asia into the foothills of the Himalayas, including Tibet, leopards are poached for their pelts, teeth and bones for use in the traditional Asian medicinal trade.

The Asian small-clawed otter is found in Tibet, where it is classed as an endangered species. The smallest of the 13 otter species, it is about two feet long and weighs under 10 pounds.

From 1999 to 2003, Tibet has spent some 60 million yuan (US$7.23 million) on the protection of the rare animals, Xinhua said. Tibet has been cooperating with other wildlife protection departments to crack down on illegal hunting in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province.

In the past five years, Tibet has dealt with 346 cases of poaching and sentenced 18 poachers to prison.