WWF calls for Malaysia ban on tiger-based medicine
Date: 26-Aug-02
Country: MALAYSIA
"We are not against Chinese medicine. We are only worried where such practices may push certain species, like the tiger, to extinction," Dionysius Sharma, senior head of WWF Malaysia's Animal Species Conservation Unit, said in a statement.
Malaysia had yet to adopt a recommendation in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species outlawing the sale of medicines purporting to contain parts from tigers or other threatened species, Sharma said.
"Presently, there are many products claiming to have tiger parts in them. It is very difficult for the authorities to ascertain for a fact if the ingredients do contain tiger parts," Sharma added.
Malaysia's tigers, numbering 500 to 600 or about 10 percent of the world's population, have been in the news since April when three rubber tappers were mauled to death in the northeastern state of Kelantan.
A fourth person is missing while another is recovering from an attack that left him needing hundreds of stitches.
Wildlife rangers trapped a suspected man eater in the area this week on the same day that a 50-year-old woman reportedly frightened a tigress which she said was preparing to attack her. Experts say tigers attack people only when old or injured, though loss of habitat and natural prey increase the chances of trouble as they are forced closer to farms and villages.
WWF Executive Director Mikaail Kavanagh Abdullah said it was more common in Malaysia that people would eat tigers rather than tigers people.
"We have heard about man-eating tigers but what about man-eaten tigers? Do we care about them?" he asked, adding that restaurants serving threatened species poached from the wild posed grave risks to endangered animal populations.