Skin trade threatens tigers with oblivion

A MASSIVE increase in the tiger skin trade is heaping pressure on the endangered animals and driving them closer to extinction, evidence uncovered by a Scottish researcher shows.

Investigations in China and Tibet reveal the scale of trade in tiger and leopard skins poached and smuggled out of India.

Debbie Banks, of the Environmental Investigation Agency, found a huge market supplying the banned products for ceremonial dresses and costumes.

Investigators attended horse festivals posing as tourists and found officials wearing the skins incorporated into robes known as chubas. The costumes had been bought in the last two years and the traders had said they came from India.

In a survey of 46 shops, 54 leopard skin chubas and 24 tiger skin chubas were displayed. Investigators were also offered three whole, fresh tiger skins.

Miss Banks, who works for the agency in Aberdeen, said: "In the last five years the international community has seen the trade in tiger and leopard skins spiral out of control. If it continues for another five years it will be the end for the wild tiger.

"It is imperative that the Indian and Chinese governments stop this trade now."