News

Tigers are not Aspirin

26 September 2005 / WWF

The state-sponsored use of tiger parts for medicine – which is reportedly being considered by the Chinese government – would spell disaster for wild tiger populations, WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, warned today.

It is believed that plans are being considered in China to test the viability of re-opening the domestic trade in tigers and their parts, banned since 1993. While China’s plan are understood to involve the use of captive bred tigers from so-called "tiger farms" for sales in China’s domestic market, WWF and TRAFFIC believe that the re-opening of the trade would threaten the world’s remaining wild tiger populations by stimulating poaching and sending the wrong signal to consumers, leading them to feel it is acceptable to buy tiger parts.

Tiger bone has been used as a treatment for rheumatism and related ailments for thousands of years in traditional Asian medicine.

"Make no bones about it – this could be the end for tigers," said Callum Rankine, Head of the WWF-UK Species Programme.

"Poachers living near the world’s last populations of tigers may kill them to supply illegal markets that are likely to develop alongside any new legal ones."

The world's tigers are at a record low, numbering around 5000. The domestic trade ban in China in 1993 gave a welcome boost to tiger conservation by curbing demand for tiger products from other range states such as India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Indonesia.

"If this goes ahead, it will undo all the excellent work the Chinese government has done over the last 12 years," says Steven Broad, Executive Director TRAFFIC International. "China has led by example in the past by imposing harsh penalities on wildlife trade criminals and through determined enforcement measures. To go back on all this, especially when there are alternatives for use in traditional medicine, just doesn’t make sense."

Pressure is also increasing on Asian big cats because of a rapidly growing market for Asian tiger and leopard skins in Tibetan regions, with animals illegally hunted every year throughout their range to meet this market demand. In August, in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, TRAFFIC investigators found 23 shops in the city’s main square openly selling skins and parts of tigers and leopards.

WWF and TRAFFIC are also calling on authorities in the region to curb the demand for Asian big cat skins and parts, and strengthen enforcement efforts.