Tiger Tiger no longer burning bright: How the tiger trade is driving tigers to extinction

© Wall Street Journal.

Introduction: The tiger, the largest Asian big cat which has roamed across tropical rainforests, evergreen forests, grasslands and savannah, is under threat. Each tiger sub-species is recognised as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and all have been listed as Appendix I species under the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna since 1987-this means that they should not be bred and/or sold for commercial purposes. Yet, the reality for tigers both wild and captive is shockingly different. Both wild and captive tigers now face serious threats to the survival of their species and despite laws in place to prevent this, it seems that the more one digs at the surface, the further down a deep hole of illegality one seems to fall and we have to ask the question of what needs to be done to save our tigers ?

Tigers: what is causing their decline and how has the law stepped in?

In 1794, English poet William Blake published the poem “The Tyger” in his collection ‘Songs of Experience’. In this time there would have been tigers roaming across their 13 range states including Bangladesh, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos and China. Fast forward to the 20th century, there were still roughly 100,000 wild living tigers. Now, WWF and the Global Tiger Forum have suggested that the tiger count could be as low as 3,200-3,900. But why are these big cats declining at such an alarming rate? The greatest threats to the survival of all tiger subspecies is the trade in live tigers, be they captive bred or poached illegally from the wild, and the growing trade in tiger parts and derivatives. Previously the trade in their skins was common, as they were used in traditional dress and shown as a sign of status in certain cultures. However, the trade has evolved and the entire tiger body is now being used to make tiger bone wine and tiger glue, which is both used as a symbol of status, but, also as a traditional medicine or aphrodisiac.

In 1993, China, the largest importer of tigers, passed the Wildlife Protection Law which was implemented to curb the internal trade in tiger bone products, often used for traditional medicinal purposes. However, the use of tiger bone in China has been increasing and in 2018 the 1993 legislation was repealed and replaced with a Directive which would allow the use of captive-bred tiger bone in certain circumstances, which by association then allowed commercial breeding of tigers in certain circumstances, including for conservation. The 1993 ban was reinstated after international pressure against China’s actions, but this shows that China is trying to skirt the attention of watchful eyes. It is this conservation “loophole” which is a cause for concern amongst activists worldwide. As the documentary Tigers: Hunting the Traffickers with Royal Marines Commando, Aldo Kane, shows, tigers are being bred in facilities labelled as “conservation sites”, but truly this is just a guise for their real purpose: breeding tigers to meet demand for tiger parts and derivatives. Karl Ammann, the investigative counter-trafficking conservationist, has discovered the same whilst he tracked illegal traffickers in Laos, finding evidence against a zoo in Tha Bak that he believed was still breeding tigers for the illegal trade.

The result is the the trade has just emerged elsewhere, particularly in the Golden Triangle, where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet. Almost all of Laos’ wild tigers have been wiped out, but the country was breeding tigers at an alarming rate for commercial purposes. As a result, the COP14 set out in Decision 14.69 serious measures to be imposed on Parties with intensive breeding programmes and stated that “tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives”. Laos was required to undertake audits of its captive tigers and to close down illegal farms of tigers… However, many conservationists have and still do try to show the CITES Standing Committees that the reality is far from this and that the illegal trade and farming of tigers for commercial purposes still goes on at an alarming rate and scale.

Tigers, Aldo Kane and his team discovered, are bred in Laos often starving and spending their days pacing in metal cages, then transported to Viet Nam and China (both with and without knowledge of border police) and are fattened, often in basements, with liquids until they are large enough for a client to decide they want them slaughtered for their parts. Tiger cubs meet a similar fate, their suffering is just less prolonged, or they are drugged and paraded in-front of tourists who don’t know, or don’t want to know better, until they are old enough to be sold for their bones.

The reality of Asia’s biggest cat couldn’t be a further cry from what we see in our mind’s eye when we think of a tiger. As the article: Trafficking the Tiger Butcher states: “standing here, I realised, the existence of the tiger had been reduced to this: endless pacing, speed breeding and a meal of raw chicken hurled into its cage at 5pm”, only to be murdered for its bones to be made into a drink.

(c) lawyersforanimalprotection.eu

The Legal Trade: just because it is legal doesn’t mean all is as it seems:

In the EU, tigers are listed as ‘Annex A’ species in EU Wildlife Trade Regulations and Council Regulation 338/97 on the Protection of Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; alongside CITES Appendix I, this should legally reinforce that tigers should not be traded for commercial purposes. Article 8 of Council Regulation 338/97 states the same: the “purchase, offer for sale, acquisition for commercial purposes, display to the public for commercial purposes, use for commercial gain and sale, keeping for sale, offering for sale or transporting for sale specimens of the species listed in Annex A is prohibited.” However, there are exceptions to this which are determined on a case-by-case basis.

Despite this, tigers can be legally moved around the EU Member States for non-commercial reasons, but that this legal trade can become very easily mixed into the illegal trade. In a recent report, WWF have noted that the US and EU fuel the illegal trade in tigers due to the various legal reasons for trade in tigers within these countries. Between 2013-2017, there were 167 CITES Trade Database records of trade in live tigers, tiger parts and derivatives. WWF found that “the largest commodity type imported and exported out of the EU in the largest quantities were live tigers, accounting for 93% (103 specimens) of EU tiger exports. WWF noted that of these 103 specimens, 19 went to Germany and Italy, 13 to Spain, 8 to the Czech Republic and France and the largest exporter of tigers was Russia. These tigers were imported into the EU for various purposes, including zoos (11), circuses/traveling exhibitions (7), and breeding in captivity (3). Based on importer data, only Germany reported the import of one live tiger for commercial purposes from Switzerland.

A similar report by Four Paws reflects similar trends. Between 1999-2016 the CITES Trade Database reflected 862 live tigers were imported by EU Member States and 1412 live tigers were exported by the EU Member States.

Despite these trades being legal under CITES, the serious concern is about the seemingly simple ways of mixing illegal and legal trade. Tigers are given the incorrect CITES codes, paper work is forged and customs officials are often bribed to be part of the problem.

This means that whilst trade looks legal on the surface, if one scratches a bit deeper, this is not always the case and this has devastating ramifications for tigers, both captive and wild living.

The Illegal trade:

There is a serious concern that EU Member States do not have a clear, consistent and accurate overview of the numbers of captive tigers, which means that tigers can slip in and out of the EU into the illegal markets very easily into the Asian market where they are highly sought after commodities. Four Paws in their 2020 report found that between 2014-2018 the uncovered that Member States are still issuing permits with the commercial code for tiger products:

-81 import permits for tiger parts and derivatives, including 16 permits for commercial purposes; and -58 export permits for tiger parts and derivatives, including 46 for commercial purposes.

The problem stems, belief WWF and Four Paws, from the inconsistent legislation across European Member States, where in some it is completely illegal to keep tigers privately or in circuses, like Portugal, Bulgaria, Sweden, The Netherlands, and others it is legal to keep tigers privately and in circuses, which is the case for Spain, Turkey, France, Germany etc. In the UK it is legal for tigers to be privately owned and it is believed there are 4 privately owned tigers in the UK.

Four Paws also cite the “diaspora in the EU from key consumer countries in Asia, such as China and Viet Nam, may intensify the issue”, as was evidenced in the Czech Republic, which experienced a very high level of illegal trade in live tigers and their parts and derivatives until a major crackdown. The trade was found to be working through networks in the Vietnamese populations in the country, of which there are 60,000-80,000. Similar trends have been reported in other Member States.

What is clear is that the EU is playing a very critical and key role in the illegal trade of tigers, their parts and derivatives. It takes a quick glance at case studies from the WWF and Four Paws reports to see this:

Belgium:

Belgium reported two tiger seizures in 2015 and 2017. One internal seizure reported in 2015 included one tiger skull seized from a private residence of a Belgian national. The second seizure involving 0.16 kg of tiger skin was seized in transit from a Vietnamese national at Liège Airport destined for Argentina. In both cases the reason the shipments were seized was the lack of CITES documentation.

Czech Republic: 2013 Czech Republic reported the seizure of two tiger skeletons intercepted in a parcel at Vaclav Havel International Airport, they were destined for Viet Nam via Taiwan. They were concealed in loudspeakers wrapped in plastic and duct tape. In 2013, 7kg of tiger bones were also seized, the suspect could not provide legal documentation but alleged they came from a breeding facility in Slovakia.

France: Between 2013-2017 France reported six seizures, three bodies, two skins, 1 trophy and 1 live tiger. In four of the seizures there were no CITES permits. In 2016, authorities found the tiger cub at a private residence where owners were charging tourists money to pose with the cub.

Lithuania: A big cat trader in Lithuania with connections to two zoo parks was approached by an undercover investigator in July 2019 in response to online adverts selling tiger cubs. The trader offered to sell four tiger cubs which were reportedly born on June 19 at a zoo park that was open to the public. The trader confirmed that he has regular contact with European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) zoos for the exchange and commercial trade of animals.

UK: Even the UK has been involved in the tiger trade. In 2012, there was a discovery into 45 boxes arriving at Felixstowe Port in Suffolk from India, they contained herbal remedies containing ground tiger claw. Between 2009-2014, the UK Border Forces made 2,853 seizures of illegal wildlife products, and 10% of seizures related to tigers, rhino and elephants.

(c) WWF

What is being done to help? Fortunately, a lot is being done to help tigers. The Czech Republic, after a major law enforcement effort, has established Tigris ID, a project and database which collects DNA samples from all tigers in captive facilities across the EU, to ensure a better, centralised database is available to keep track of tigers within the EU. All Member States should be encouraged to sign up to this database and ensure active participation as knowing the numbers of captive tigers will significantly impact on the ability to illegally move tigers and their bodies in and out of the EU. Four Paws and WWF have both given recommendations in their reports, which set out the steps that the EU should be taking to help reduce and remove their role in the illegal tiger trade, such as adopting strict internal measures on tigers in captive facilities and improved collaboration with bodies like CITES. Journalists like Aldo Kane and Karl Amman are working hard to expose the failures of countries which fuel and fund the tiger trade, which opens this discussion up to the general public and educates them on this terrible crime that is being inflicted upon tigers.

You too can do your bit to help by spreading this message, by never participating in any activities which allow interactions with tigers and by never consuming products containing tiger parts and/or derivatives.