Poor old tiger

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is holding its triennial conference in Bangkok from 3 to 14 March. The main business is to decide how to improve the world's wildlife trade regime that has been in place for 40 years.

Tigers are fully protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and cannot be traded without proper authorisation. Despite this the world's wild tigers are on the brink of extinction. There are now estimated to be as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild, spread across increasingly fragmented forests stretching from India to north-eastern China and from the Russian Far East to Sumatra. Wild tiger numbers have fallen by about 95% over the past 100 years, and three subspecies - the Bali, Caspian and Javan - are now extinct.

Poaching for skins and body parts used in traditional Asian medicines is the largest immediate threat to the species worldwide. The growing prosperity of the South-east Asian and east Asian economies since the 1970s has led to an ever-increasing demand for these medicines. There are also significant markets among Asian communities in North America and Europe for tiger-based medicines. Nearly every part of a tiger has a prescribed benefit according to the tenets of Chinese medicine. For example the skin is used for mental illness, the testes for TB of the lymph nodes, the fat for piles and dog bites, the bones for sprains and joint problems, the teeth for sores on the penis and the whiskers for toothache.

These products, all claiming to contain tiger parts, are from a large consignment seized by the Metropolitan Police in Soho, London. They were later presented to Aberdeen University's Zoology Museum for use in conservation education.