The critically endangered Sumatran tiger will become extinct unless Indonesia takes swift action to clamp down on the illegal sale of the big cats' body parts across the country, a conservation group warned yesterday.
TRAFFIC, a British-based international wildlife trade monitoring network, said in a report that it found tiger bones, claws, skins and whiskers being sold openly in eight cities on Indonesia's Sumatra Island in 2006, despite tough laws banning such trade.
The group estimated that 23 tigers had been killed to supply the parts found for sale in souvenir, Chinese medicine and jewelry stores. Prices ranged from the equivalent of US$14 for a tiger claw to about US$116 per kilogram of tiger bones.
PHOTO: AFP
"Surveys continue to show that Sumatran tigers are being sold body part by body part into extinction," said a statement issued by Susan Lieberman, director of the species program for the conservation group WWF, which contributed to the report.
The Sumatran tiger is the world's most critically endangered tiger subspecies -- WWF estimates fewer than 400 remain in the wild in comparison to about 1,000 in the 1970s. The tigers' diminishing population is largely blamed on poaching and the destruction of their forest habitat for palm oil and wood pulp plantations.
"This is an enforcement crisis," Lieberman's statement said, adding that Indonesia needs to show it can cope with the crisis or ask for help from the international community.
Indonesia launched a 10-year plan to protect the Sumatran tiger in December. But conservationists complain that Indonesian commitments to preserving wildlife are rarely supported by enforcement measures.
"There is no effective enforcement on the ground," said Chris Shepherd, senior program officer for TRAFFIC who has been tracking the Indonesian tiger trade for nearly 15 years. "It boils down to lack of resources. Wildlife crime isn't viewed as a high priority in Indonesia or anywhere in Southeast Asia."
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
RSS