TruthSeeker
PDF THINK TANK: ANALYST
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2008
- Messages
- 6,390
- Reaction score
- 3
- Country
- Location
Russia Seizes a Ton of Animal Parts Smuggled From China
By ANDREW E. KRAMER, June 14, 2011
MOSCOW The 26 elk lips were just the tip of the pile. The items the Russian customs agents reported seizing Tuesday were exotic even by the standards of Russias border with China, where wildlife smuggling is rampant: 1,041 bear paws, lynx fur, unspecified claw parts and five tusks from the extinct woolly mammoth.
Officials said they discovered the cargo after a dog alerted them to the contents in the bed of a Chinese drivers seemingly empty truck. On closer examination, officials found a secret compartment with the cache of contraband.
The illegal cargo weighing almost 1.4 tons was detained by border guards and customs officials a statement explained. The items were individually wrapped, the statement said, though it did not say if the compartment was refrigerated. The elk lips alone weighed 143 pounds.
China is a vacuum cleaner for Siberian wildlife, said Aleksei L. Vaisman, a senior coordinator for Traffic Europe-Russia, which is sponsored by the conservation group WWF, which monitors trade in wild animals. The largest cache of bear paws he knew of previously was 787 paws (one paw shy of 197 full sets of four).
As Russian border agents using dogs have become more adept at catching small-time traffickers, smugglers have been compelled to risk large shipments, he said. The large number reported Tuesday (from about 260 bears) were most likely accumulated by brokers who bought them from hunters over the winter, he said. A set of four brings the hunters about $50.
Bear paws are a ritual dish for Chinese, elk lips a delicacy. Also smuggled daily, for food or medicine, are bear gallbladders, frogs, deer antlers and the genitals of spotted deer. The bones of highly endangered Amur tigers are sought for their aphrodisiac qualities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/world/asia/15smuggling.html
By ANDREW E. KRAMER, June 14, 2011
MOSCOW The 26 elk lips were just the tip of the pile. The items the Russian customs agents reported seizing Tuesday were exotic even by the standards of Russias border with China, where wildlife smuggling is rampant: 1,041 bear paws, lynx fur, unspecified claw parts and five tusks from the extinct woolly mammoth.
Officials said they discovered the cargo after a dog alerted them to the contents in the bed of a Chinese drivers seemingly empty truck. On closer examination, officials found a secret compartment with the cache of contraband.
The illegal cargo weighing almost 1.4 tons was detained by border guards and customs officials a statement explained. The items were individually wrapped, the statement said, though it did not say if the compartment was refrigerated. The elk lips alone weighed 143 pounds.
China is a vacuum cleaner for Siberian wildlife, said Aleksei L. Vaisman, a senior coordinator for Traffic Europe-Russia, which is sponsored by the conservation group WWF, which monitors trade in wild animals. The largest cache of bear paws he knew of previously was 787 paws (one paw shy of 197 full sets of four).
As Russian border agents using dogs have become more adept at catching small-time traffickers, smugglers have been compelled to risk large shipments, he said. The large number reported Tuesday (from about 260 bears) were most likely accumulated by brokers who bought them from hunters over the winter, he said. A set of four brings the hunters about $50.
Bear paws are a ritual dish for Chinese, elk lips a delicacy. Also smuggled daily, for food or medicine, are bear gallbladders, frogs, deer antlers and the genitals of spotted deer. The bones of highly endangered Amur tigers are sought for their aphrodisiac qualities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/world/asia/15smuggling.html
