Dwindling Tigers Need Cover

Tigers are vanishing, and the illegal trade in their parts for use in traditional medicines is largely to blame. If it's hard to imagine that anyone would be willing to kill one of these exquisite creatures to use its penis in some half-cocked virility potion, well, just think about how big a market bogus fertility drugs are in this country: A bazillion spam messages can't be wrong!

According to a recent report by the BBC, World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick estimated the annual trade in animal parts at $10 billion. It is the third highest commodity on the black market index, right behind drugs and weapons.

To slow the trade, penalties have to be harsher on both the supply and the demand sides. Perhaps we should take our cue from a proven success story: Richard Leakey.

His name probably rings bells to the seasoned conservationist. A story about him in Sierra Magazine blushingly called him "Kenya's most famous conservationist," but in his lifetime he has been called a number of different things, including racist, colonialist, and atheist — the only accusation to which he pleads guilty. Baby boomers (and anyone who read my recent post on Jane Goodall) would recognize his name because he is the son of English anthropologist Louis Leakey. Louis is famous for connecting some rather large dots in human evolution and establishing Jane Goodall; Richard is famous for hunting poachers.

Richard Leakey never finished secondary school, but excelled at navigating the political realities of Kenyan society. At 25 he landed himself a position as the director of the National Museums of Kenya, and by the '80s he was asked to lead the Kenya Wildlife Service. Elephant and rhinoceros poaching had become so severe by then that Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi gave orders to shoot poachers on sight. Not only did Leakey comply with this frontier-style justice, he supplied the KWS with helicopters, automatic weapons, night vision goggles, and enough men to make a serious dent in poaching. During his first year, an average of one poacher was killed every four days in Kenya.

Before people start comparing this practice with memories of The Most Dangerous Game, it would help to note that they are completely different situations. The KWS is an agency run by the Kenyan people, not an evil Russian aristocrat. The poachers were not witless shipwreck victims, but heavily armed professionals from Somalia. Leakey believes that "if the continent's wildlife is to be saved it will be by Africans themselves."

In a famous photograph, Leakey stands before a bonfire of ivory worth $3 million. That single photograph earned him and the African elephant unprecedented coverage and support from the international community. In a recent operation by Interpol and 18 other agencies, $10 million of animal contraband was confiscated, including the effects of bear, elephant, and tiger.

To recreate Leakey's photograph, those tiger remains would have to be pooled from China, India, Manchuria, Indonesia, Siberia, Nepal, Malaysia, Burma, Thailand, Sumatra, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. Most of these countries have fewer than 300 tigers remaining in the wild.

If these countries do not have enough support to stop the poachers however they see fit, there will be nothing left to burn.

Photo credit: Law Keven