GUILIN, China -- The crowd-pleasing Year of the Tiger, which begins Sunday, could be a lousy year for the estimated 3,200 tigers that still roam the world's diminishing forests.
With as few as 20 in the wild in China, the country's tigers are a few gun blasts away from extinction, and in India poachers are making quick work of the tiger population, the world's largest. The number there, around 1,400, is about half that of a decade ago and a fraction of the 100,000 that roamed the subcontinent in the early 20th century.
Shrinking habitat remains a daunting challenge, but conservationists say the biggest threat to Asia's largest predator is the Chinese appetite for tiger parts. Despite a government ban on the trade since 1993, there is a robust market for tiger bones, rolex fake traditionally prized for their healing and aphrodisiac qualities, and tiger skins, which have become cherished trophies among China's nouveau riche.
With pelts selling for $20,000 and a single paw worth as much as $1,000, the value of a dead pandora style beads tiger has never been higher, say those who investigate the trade. Last month the Indian government announced a surge in killings of tigers by poachers, with 88 found dead in 2009, double the previous year. Because figures are based on carcasses found on reserves or tiger parts seized at border crossings, conservationists say the true number is far higher.
"All of the demand for tiger parts is coming from China," said Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. "Unless the Chinese change their attitude, the tiger has no future on this earth."
Although conservationists say India must do a better job of policing its 37 tiger reserves, they insist that the Chinese government has not done all it can to quell the domestic market for illicit tiger parts. Anti-trafficking efforts are haphazard, experts pandora beads say; China bans the use of tiger parts in traditional Chinese medicine but overlooks the sale of alcohol-based health tonics steeped in tiger bone.
It is a gray area that has been exploited by Chinese tiger farms, which raise thousands of animals with assembly-line efficiency.
In addition to overlooking the sale of tiger wine, the Chinese government has fueled the market in tiger parts by letting such farms exist, critics say.
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