UPDATE:
IFAW Commends Chinese Government for Stopping Sale of Tiger Bone Wine
IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare—www.ifaw.org) applauds a Chinese government order which stopped the sale of hundreds of bottles of Tiger Bone Wine at an auction in Beijing today.
Beijing auction house Googut listed over 400 bottles of tiger bone wine from various Traditional Chinese Medicine manufactures in a special liquor and health tonics auction titled—Bouncing Dragon, Jumping Tiger. Trade in tiger bone has been illegal in China since 1993.
“We commend the government for taking a decisive action to prevent this illegal trade,” said Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia Regional Director of International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Any sale of tiger bone products is in blatant violation of both international and domestic trade bans. It can only stimulate the demand for tiger products and the poaching of wild tigers.”
Tigers are a critically-endangered species, with as few as 3,000 remaining in the wild.
Monitoring of wildlife markets both online and offline in China shows an increase in products from endangered species traded in auctions. The products, which are protected by CITES and under China’s Wildlife Protection Law, are often traded disguised as “antiques” and “collectables”.
“The audacity of the auction and its high profile promotion demonstrate how out of control the market is,” added Gabriel. “We urge a thorough investigation of the auction market for wildlife contraband followed with strong law enforcement. The sponsors of the auction should be held legally responsible and the wildlife contraband should be confiscated to prevent it from entering further trade.”
“It is outrageous that the auction openly flaunts the law and damages China’s image in the world,” said renowned Chinese artist and environmentalist, Xikun Yuan who attended the global tiger summit last year St. Petersburg, Russia, where world leaders pledged to protect wild tigers. “The most important contribution China could make to tiger protection is to end tiger trade once and for all.”
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PEOPLE POWER STOPS AUCTION OF TIGER WINE
Thank you for all of the recent support for theTigerTime campaign, due to your overwhelming assistance the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation in conjunction with IFAW and EIA have managed to stop the auction of 400 bottles of tiger wine in China.
This is a great achievement for the TigerTimecampaign, but we still need to see a ban in ALL tiger products WORLDWIDE. We have been told by the Chinese CITES representative Wan Ziming that he is ‘sure’ the auction will NOT go ahead and that actions have already been taken against it. This is despite them stating that the wine is from legal origin (before the 1993 legislation came into action), which is unproven.
Ziming reinforced that the tiger is China’s key national protected species that they want to save from extinction and that they do not tolerate the illegal trade of tiger species. He also stated that China is introducing a labelling system of wildlife trade. Whether this assurance is put into action, we can only wait and see.
In the meantime, the fight for tiger protection and the ban on trade continues. Seizures of tiger products that are destined for China are still being made in India, Nepal and Thailand and with tiger farms in China still operating, the demand is still being fed.
READ FULL NEWS:
http://www.davidshepherd.org/news-events/news/people-power-stops-auction-of-tiger-wine/
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Auction banned by Chinese Government!
Dear “Ban the Tiger Trade” Supporter
The Chinese Government has banned an auction of 400 bottles of tiger wine (made from crushed tiger bones) that was planned to take place this weekend in China.
Just by being part of
TigerTime, or by being a signatory to our Ban The Tiger Trade Petition at
www.bantigertrade.com , you helped achieve this small but important victory in the overall campaign to see ALL trade in ANY tiger or Asian big cat body parts from ANY source banned – with a Zero Tolerance Approach.
Hundreds and hundreds of our supporters answered our ‘call to action’ and emailed the Chinese Government. As a result, the Chinese Government were left in no doubt about the strength of feeling on this subject.
This is proof that our campaign is making a difference. The more people that come together on this vital issue, the greater our chance of success.
Please pass this good news onto your friends and contacts by email, twitter and facebook urging them to signup at
www.bantigertrade.com if they haven’t already done so.
The trade in tiger body parts is a mortal threat to the survival of the wild tiger. We need it stopped.
Our other pressing need is to raise the funds needed to stop the poaching of wild tigers. If you’d like to help, why not consider buying some of your Christmas gifts from our excellent on line
TigerTime Shop (see picture of some of the TigerTime products). It’s also possible to ‘
adopt a tiger’ as a gift idea. As ever, donations are always welcome by
clicking hereIts really down to you why we are going to make a difference in the fight to save the tiger from extinction.
Kind regards
Vicky Flynn
TigerTime C/O David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation
PAST NEWS:
A Chinese auction of traditional health tonics scheduled for Saturday, December 3, in a Beijing hotel will feature at least 400 bottles of wine made from tiger bone in blatant disregard of a global trade ban, according to IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare - www.ifaw.org ).
“IFAW has alerted the Chinese authorities to this illegal trade and urge them to shut down this auction,” said Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia Regional Director for IFAW. “Selling products made from tiger bone is not only illegal, but also ignores the pledge of China’s Premier to crack down on the trade of tiger products.”
Poached for their body parts for medicinal purposes, wild tigers have all but disappeared from China. Illegal trade in tiger body parts and products, driven by the Chinese demand, continues to threaten the remaining populations of tigers, which declined from over 100,000 a century ago to as few as 3000 left in the wild.
IFAW discovered hundreds of bottles of “tiger bone wine” from various Traditional Chinese Medicine manufacturers listed in the online catalogue of Beijing auction house Googut, which claimed the products were produced before a 1993 Chinese trade ban on all tiger bone products. The tiger bone products were on display at the auction preview in Beijing on Friday, along with carved rhino horn, which is also illegal to buy and sell in China.
“It doesn’t matter whether the tiger bone products are pre-ban or not, their trade is forbidden by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and domestically in all tiger range states,” said Gabriel. “Moreover, the sale of tiger products of any kind confuses the public, stimulates market demand and fuels poaching of tigers.”
The 1993 State Council trade ban explicitly forbids all trade of tiger bone and rhino horn, including selling, buying, and transport. Products produced before the ban went into effect are also required to be sealed and banned from trade.
The Chinese ban was reconfirmed by Premier Wen Jiabao at the global tiger summit in St. Petersburg, Russia exactly a year ago this week. The summit represented the first time top political leaders from 13 tiger range states came together to save a species. They adopted a global plan to double the wild tiger population over the next 12 years by stepping up efforts to protect tiger habitat, stop poaching, and end tiger trade.
The likely buyers for tiger bone wine at the Beijing auction are wealthy elite consumers, a growing class in China who are driving renewed demand for tiger body parts.
Strategies for reducing this escalating demand were among the issues discussed by experts from tiger range countries, the World Bank, and tiger protection organizations, including IFAW, who gathered in Washington, D.C. earlier this week to assess progress in the year since the St. Petersburg summit.
IFAW supports anti poaching patrols in tiger habitats, trains law enforcement officers to control illegal trade, and conducting public awareness campaigns in consumer countries to reduce demand.
More info about Chinese animals
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