Tiger poachers growing bolder, experts say

Feb 14, 2012, 13:55 GMT

Bangkok - Officials from the 13 tiger-range countries agreed Tuesday to clamp down on traffickers of the big cats, who are growing bolder amid increasing demand from China.

'We are not dealing with ordinary poachers anymore,' said Ben Janse Van Rensburg, chief of enforcement of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

'These days the criminals involved in the wildlife trade are very sophisticated, organized gangs,' he told a seminar on tiger-related crimes in Bangkok.

'We must take immediate and urgent action to save these magnificent animals from extinction,' Kunio Mikuriya, secretary general of the World Customs Organization said.

The tiger population has plummeted from around 100,000 a century ago to an estimated 3,200, the meeting of senior police and customs officials heard.

The illegal trade in wildlife as a whole has grown to an estimated 10 billion dollars a year, but authorities have not stepped up their measures against it, said John Scanlon, CITES general secretary.

'What we notice in wildlife crime is that there is nowhere near the depth of analysis that is done in respect of narcotics,' he said.

As a result, there is little data on whether the Global Tiger Initiative, launched by the World Bank in 2009, has reduced the traffic in Asian tigers, he said.

India was singled out as a relative success story. 'There is definitely more awareness, definitely more willingness to fight poaching and there is an increase in density of tigers per square kilometres in India,' said Keshav Varma, director of the initiative at the World Bank.

India, home to nearly half of the world's remaining wild tigers, has added 2,500 square kilometres of new tiger habitat with two new reserves since 2010, he said.

But demand for tiger meat and body parts remains strong, especially in China.

'As far as demand is concerned, there is definitely a surge, with more economic well-being and a richer class in Asia,' Varma said. 'And the illegal traders are definitely more aggressive and better organized.'

The 13 tiger-range countries are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.