New Delhi, Oct 22 (IANS) Tiger skin from India is being clandestinely sold in Chinese markets, but Beijing is turning a blind eye despite repeated warnings, conservationists said here Thursday following an undercover operation carried out by them.
“China has run out of excuses. They tell us they are doing their best, but we have been warning them about this for years and there are still huge gaps in their enforcement effort. If they can put a man into space, they can do more to save the wild tiger,” Debbie Banks, lead campaigner of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), said at a press conference.

China is failing in its duty to protect the endangered species in the run up to the Year of the Tiger in 2010, with tiger skin and bones being illegally traded there, EIA - which carried out the undercover operation - said in a report.

Currently, the global tiger population in the wild may be as few as 3,100, with around 1,400 in India.

The report comes just days before a high level summit in Kathmandu where delegations from tiger range countries, including India and China, will meet to thrash out a roadmap for big cat conservation.

Sold as luxury items for home decor or clothing in Tibet and China, tiger skins fetch around $11,660-21,860 each, while bones, which are used for traditional medicine, sell for $1,250 per kg. Large amounts of money are involved in the trade, which is controlled by organised criminal networks.

Over the course of a three-week investigation in July and August this year, EIA recovered four full tiger skins (royal Bengal tigers), 12 leopard skins, 11 snow leopard skins and two clouded leopard skins, along with dozens of pieces of skin, bones and skulls.

“At a horse festival in Tibet, nine people were seen wearing tiger skins and 25 wearing leopard skins in full view of the local authorities,” said Banks at the joint press conference with Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).

Buying and selling tiger derivatives is illegal under Chinese law and the trade is outlawed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), of which China is a member. Most of the big cat skins sold in China are sourced from neighbouring countries such as India, Myanmar and Nepal, the report said.

Wright said: “Although Chinese law has banned the use of tiger derivatives in traditional medicines, the existence of tiger breeding farms in the country has raised questions on the government’s sincerity to deal with the issue. Earlier, these tigers were killed for their body parts. Now it is banned.”