Thanksgiving Big Cat Love Story

Take our poll here about what you love most about cats:  http://www.facebook.com/bigcatrescue

Mark your calendars!

Fun Fur All Ball at Skipper’s

Join us for a benefit concert at Skipper’s Smoke House in Tampa on Sunday December 11th. Enjoy musical entertainment from Juanjamon Band, Skull and Bone Band, The Human Condition, and Sunset Bridge while perusing the raffle and auction items, including original paintings created live during the show by local artists.

The Fun Fur All Ball is from 4-9 PM. Tickets are a $10 minimum suggested donation. Check out  Skipper’s facebook page and Like them.

Save Wild Tigers

PETITION PRESSES CHINA TO END ALL TIGER TRADE

Zero tolerance is the only way to preserve the last wild tigers

LONDON: The Environmental Investigation Agency today endorses a new petition calling on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on tiger trade.

The petition has been organised by TigerTime, an initiative of the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation which has garnered mass public and celebrity support to raise awareness of the plight of the world’s last remaining wild tigers and campaign to reverse its decline.

The petition urges: “I appeal to Premier Wen Jiabao to send a clear message to his government, calling for an end to all tiger trade within China. This is to include a call for a zero tolerance policy applied to all trade of all parts and derivatives of tiger and other protected Asian big cats, from all sources.”

It has been launched almost a year to the day since Wen Jiabao, at the 2010 International Tiger Conservation Forum in St Petersburg, promised the world his country would “vigorously combat poaching, trade and smuggling of tiger products”.

However, China has refused to answer questions about the implementation of its controversial 2007 Skin Registration Scheme, allowing tiger and leopard skins from ‘legal origins’, including those from captive-bred big cats, to be registered, labelled and sold.

A lack of transparency as to how authorities determine the legality of skins, coupled with inadequate enforcement and growing corruption, is creating a smokescreen for the illegal trade in tiger and leopard skins and derivatives in China.

“EIA has often worked with the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation as a fellow member of the Species Survival Network and is pleased to wholeheartedly endorse its TigerTime petition,” said EIA Lead Campaigner Debbie Banks.

“China has had more than enough time to begin putting its house in order along the lines of Wen Jiabao’s promises in Russia, but instead of shutting down the tiger farms and embracing a zero-tolerance policy on the trade in tiger and big cat skins and derivatives, it instead seems dead set on heading in the wrong direction.”

The TigerTime initiative has secured the support of a large number of household names since launching in June, including Samantha Fox, Sir Paul McCartney, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Michael Parkinson, Susan Sarandon, Anjelica Huston, Jeremy Irons, Paula Abdul, Neil Gaiman and

Joan Jett.

The TigerTime ‘Ban the Tiger Trade’ petition can be found at www.bantigertrade.com.

Interviews, footage and stills are available on request: please contact Debbie Banks, at debbiebanks@eia-international.org or telephone 020 7354 7960.

EDITORS’ NOTES

1. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is a UK-based Non Governmental Organisation and charitable trust (registered charity number 1040615) that investigates and campaigns against a wide range of environmental crimes, including illegal wildlife trade, illegal logging, hazardous waste, and trade in climate and ozone-altering chemicals.

2. The EIA report Enforcement not Extinction: Zero Tolerance on Tiger Trade outlines EIA’s recommendations for urgent actions to reverse the tiger’s decline http://www.eia-international.org/enforcement-not-extinction.

3. EIA has written to China seeking clarification over the 2007 Skin Registration Scheme and raised questions about it from the floor at UN meetings, but China has failed to respond. Read our briefings at http://www.eia-international.org/leopards-losing-out-at-cites-as-parties-let-reporting-slide & http://www.eia-international.org/enforcement-and-asian-big-cats

4. The International Tiger Forum in St Petersburg in November 2010 resulted in the adoption of the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP) and the goal of doubling the wild tiger population by 2022; see http://www.globaltigerinitiative.org/download/St_Petersburg/GTRP_Nov11_Final_Version_Eng.pdf

5. It is estimated there are between 3,200-3,500 wild tigers remaining in the world.

6. The Species Survival Network (SSN), founded in 1992, is an international coalition of more than 80 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) committed to the promotion, enhancement and strict enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Visit the SSN website here www.ssn.org.

Environmental Investigation Agency

62-63 Upper Street

London N1 0NY

UK

www.eia-international.org

Tel: +44 207 354 7960

Fax: +44 207 354 7961