Sale of tigers, live or dead, banned

Sale of tigers, live or dead, banned

 

(01-12-2008)

 

HA NOI ? Both Viet Nam and International law prohibit the sale of tigers, dead or alive, the country representative of a WWF-linked wildlife trade monitoring network said yesterday.

 

“The selling and buying of tiger specimens in Viet Nam, live or dead, their parts or derivatives, for commercial purposes should be considered going against current national laws,” Sulma Warne of the Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce, or TRAFFIC, told Viet Nam News.

 

Viet Nam law had protected tigers from commercial trade since 1992, he said.

 

Warn was responding to the Ha Noi Zoo’s selling of two dead tigers to suspected wildlife trafficker Nguyen Quoc Truong. Truong was arrested earlier this week.

 

The zoo’s deputy director Dang Gia Tung admitted on Wednesday that a 39kg tiger, which died of disease, was sold at an auction for VND125 million ? more than US$7,800 ? last November.

 

Another dead tiger was sold for VND150 million, almost $9,400 in 2002.

 

The zoo had sold the dead tigers only after receiving final forensic results from the National Veterinary Research Institute and the Veterinary Diagnosis Centre, Tung said.

 

The deputy director argued that the zoo’s business licence, issued in 1982, allowed it to buy or sell animals bred in captivity, and the dead tiger sold in November was born at the zoo.

 

The first dead tiger had been sold before the Government Decree for the management of endangered species of wild fauna and flora, 32/2006/ND-CP, was issued in 2006.

 

The Decree supersedes Decree 18/HDBT, issued in 1992 by the Ministers Council, and Decree 48/2002/ND-CP issued by the Government, and promulgates a list of protected species in which Tiger, Panthera tigris, is listed in Group 1B (no exploitation or use of these wild animals for commercial purpose is allowed).

 

“It should be noted that the tiger had also been listed in the same group of 1-B in both Decree 18/HDBT and Decree 48/2002/ND-CP, said TRAFFIC’s Warne.

 

“Legally, this means that the species has been continuously protected from commercial trade since 1992.”

 

The Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, CITES, Resolution Conf 12.5 asked parties, including Viet Nam, to prohibit trade in tiger parts and derivatives, both internationally and domestically, even from captive-bred specimens, Warne said. ? VNS

 

Sidebar:

Animals seized:

The Ha Noi Environmental Police and the forest management force report that a number of wild animals, including a lynx, were seized at the Nam Hai Restaurant in Thanh Xuan District’s Nguyen Trai Street on Thursday.

Lynx is listed as an endangered wild animal and its exploitation or use for commercial purposes is prohibited. Inquiries are continuing.

 

http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01CAS120108