| Tiger poem An article in todays Daily Express caught my eye. There is no limit to the greed of much of mankind but the Chinese appear to be better at greed and cruelty than many. Who can forget the Caged Bears with tubes connected to 'milk' them of bile. Would the Giant Panda already be extinct if not for the efforts of the WWF 40 years ago.? Tiger, Tiger with eyes of fire 'Tis not just your pelt that men desire They want your teeth for their elixier Your stealthy ways must get trickier Your sleek body admired in repose They even steal your tail and nose Your whiskers, brain and your bone Every bodypart, you roar and groan Even faeces from your gut They want it all, you're in a rut Even grasses growing tall Cannot hide you from them all Your life it is in mortal danger No protection from the ranger The poachers track you through the bush Armed with their 762 Kalashnikov As you traverse your shrinking kingdom Regal beast full of wisdom Your time on earth is at an end Because mankind would not bend Traditional ways of medication Has destroyed the Tiger nation If you were man and fought the tide The world would cry it's genocide No longer are your eyes of fire Yet you're still the object of their desire Eyes once bright are now fading Milky, opaque, death has taken Tigers lives for cash, it's known as trading Following on from the poem> The Chinese medicine trade has spread evil tentacles way beyond the Far East, many small British towns have a Chinese remedy shop. Look below at this list concerning Tiger bodyparts: Dung or Faeces...used to treat alcoholism, boils and piles. Tail..for diseases of the skin Nose...cuts and bites Teeth...fever Claws...sedatives as well as insomnia Penis...what else other than an aphrodisiac...Tiger Penis soup is a love potion. Rhino horn is also used for this. Whiskers...toothache. Bile...convulsions Eyeballs...malaria and epilepsy Fat...leprosy and rheumatics Brain...laziness and pimples. Bone...headaches, weakness, stiffness, paralysis and as an anti imflammatory. The following article is paraphrased from an EIA and Daily Express report. The truck was stopped ar random, a routine border search. The load was bails of wool, the place Tibet. Police saw that it was just bails of wool but newspapers indicated the truck had travelled from deep within India. The bales of wool were superficial. Hidden inside police discovered animal skins representing the slaughter of 778 Asian Otters, 581 Leopards and 31 Tigers, given that a recent survey had indicated that there are less than 2,500 Tigers left in the wild this was immensley worrying. Tigers are without doublt beautiful creatures but alive they bring in a few dollars from tourists, dead they represent an enormous amount of cash. Where the poacher may only reap a few bucks, the higher up the chain the greater the 'rewards' until the top honcho gains big, big bucks. Methods of killing even surpass the cruelty of fox hunting and hare coursing, the noble beast is murdered by trapping, poisoning and shooting.. Authorities recently raided a suspected wildlife product warehouse to discover 39 leopard skins, 1 snow leopard pelt, 42 Otter pelts, 60 kg's of Tiger bone and claws 14 teeth, 10 jawbones and many other tiger and leopard bones. 4 people were arrested during the raid in Delhi including relatives of the notorious illegal trader Sansar Chand. Chand has been arrested only twice in 10 years and has absconded twice but has run his illegal business for thirty years. How many deaths is this one shit responsible for. Despite this Chand operated with imputunity, I wonder who'se palms he is greasing. The Indian government, despite warnings from its own wildlife experts is consistent, consistent in its failure to act. AAn Indian wildlife charity has documented government seizures of illegal products over a decade, the records show the confiscation of only 684 Tigers and 2,336 Leopard pelts in that time...surely the tip of a very large iceberg. Indian customs suggest multiplying those figures by ten to gve a more realistic estimate. If animal pelts make it as far as Tibet they are openly displayed for sale in Llasa the capital. From Tibet skins end up not only in the Asian cities of Shanghai and Peking but also in London, New York and Paris. The population of China is expanding at a phenominal rate, no wonder they come over here for a career as sea shore harvesters. It is estimated that 60% of the population use remedies made from wildlife. Booming economies in South East Asia have seen an increased demand. This is often because these countries have a high proportion of Chinese Immigrants but the local population also believe in the efficiency of the concoctions It is supply and demand, high demand means spiralling prices and greater profits to the cash hungry triads. Currently it is estimated that the 'industry' is worth at an annual 4 billion. The estimated population of China alone is a billion...60% of...wow! The Koreans, northern and southern care little for animals. A kilo of powdered Tiger humerus bone is $1,500. It is well documented that dog is a staple in the diet of these people. Japan, sixty years down the line from WW2 and now considered civilised is not only one of the greatest persecutors of Whales and Dolphins but a huge consumer of Tiger parts and Elephant Ivory. The London Zoological Society estimates that bone equivalent to 200 Tigers was imported by Japan in 1990 alone. (1.900 kg's) Southern Korena stats show that 3,994 kg's arrived between 1970 and 1993. The weight of the bones from a dead Tiger weighs around 10 kg's so that is 400 Tigers dead to satisfy mankind. Consider different species of the same creature, there are now only five species of Tiger left out of a total of 37 that once existed. One thing boy, if you children or grandchildren have never seen a Tiger you had better get them to a zoo PDQ. It would be so easy for a species once extinct to pick up a virus wiping out the captive population. To look at the EIA's website go to: www.eia-international.org This group of activists are known as the animal detectives and have launched some thrilling campaigns. In many cases their operatives have put their lives in danger in order to expose the trade in endangered wildlife. I for one salute them/ | 
