July 21, 2009 09:25 AM

Three Vietnamese Men Arrested For Trading Endangered Tigers

HO CHI MINH CITY, July 21 (Bernama) -- Three men were arrested last week on charges of trading endangered animals after police discovered a dead tiger and 11 kilos of tiger bones in the boot of a taxi in which they were traveling, reports the Vietnam news agency.

The Vietnamese men, all from the central province of Thanh Hoa, were en route to Ha Noi when the city's environmental police stopped the taxi.

Quoting Dr. Dang Tat The of the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, the news agency said that the young tiger, which was found in a freezer, weighed 57 kg. The bones were from at least two adult animals.

The trading of such animals violated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which Vietnam is a party.

Police said it was uncertain whether the animals originated in Vietnam or were a wild or captive specimen.

"We will call upon the authorities to carry out DNA testing to help determine where these tigers came from," said Nguyen Dao Ngoc Van, senior project officer at the Hanoi-based office of TRAFFIC, the international wildlife trade monitoring network.

This was the third seizure of illegally traded tigers in Hanoi this year.

In January, more than two tonnes of wildlife products including six tiger skins were uncovered at a store in Dong Da District, in addition to a February seizure of 23 kg of frozen tiger parts.

Experts said fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild worldwide, with an estimated population of about 50 in Vietnam.

All six tiger sub-species are listed as endangered or critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List.

Poaching represents a major threat to the survival of wild tigers.

Tigers are listed in CITES's Appendix 1, which prohibits international commercial trade in them or their derivatives.

Although Vietnam has banned all domestic trade of tigers, the underground trade continues.

Poachers sell the bones for use in traditional medicine, the meat for status symbol and health tonic purposes, and the skin for trophy and decorative use.

-- BERNAMA

We provide (subscription-based) 
news coverage in our Newswire service.