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LookAtVietnam – The Thanh Hoa Provincial government has cancelled its planned sale of tiger-bone glue following public opposition that the auction would violate criminal laws on preserving wild nature.
Le The Long, chief of the provincial Forest Protection Department, told a Friday press briefing that the 2.77 kilograms of glue seized from traffickers on Aug 13 will be handed over to the Thanh Hoa Traditional Medicine Hospital.
Le The Long, chief of the provincial Forest Protection Department, told a Friday press briefing that the 2.77 kilograms of glue seized from traffickers on Aug 13 will be handed over to the Thanh Hoa Traditional Medicine Hospital.
The tiger skin will be handed over to the province’s General Museum, he added.
Earlier, the provincial People’s Committee had announced its plan on Nov 19 to auction the tiger glue, which promptly attracted opposition from local conservation group Education for Nature-Vietnam (ENV).
ENV called it a “shocking decision”. Poaching or trading tiger and tiger parts is banned under Vietnamese laws.
Who killed the tiger?
Long denied the information provided earlier by his boss Trinh Van Chien, the province’s deputy mayor, that the glue was made from a 61-kilogram dead tiger found in a house in Tho Xuan District.
Thanh Hoa’s forest officers seized the frozen tiger after it was discarded from a fleeing bus, Long informed the press, and decided to cook it into glue after failing to catch the traffickers.
In Vietnam, tiger bones are used to make expensive traditional medicines purported to cure many illnesses and can fetch as much as VND50 million (US$2,562) per kilogram in the black market. In certain cases, a kilogram could be sold for $10,000.
According to ENV’s latest report, 97 tigers are being kept in captivity in Vietnam, 81 of them on private farms.
The rest are in state-owned zoos and wildlife rescue centers.
Meanwhile, a report by the Worldwide Fund for Nature in March said there were only around 30 tigers left in the wild in Vietnam.
Source: Tuoi Tre
