A crackdown on illegal tiger products in China has created a soaring trade in lion bones from South Africa to Asia, ecologists say.
Alleged ‘tiger’-infused wines and traditional medicines are popular in China. But when the country tightened its rules on selling parts from tigers and other Asian big cats in 2006 and 2007, it may have "inadvertently set off a chain reaction of interlinking and unexpected events" that led to the bones of African lions being exported to fill the gap in demand, according to a 16 July study1. The report is published jointly by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at the University of Oxford, UK, and the international wildlife organization TRAFFIC.
The trade in lion bones disguised as those from tigers had been recognized before, but not quantified, says ecologist Andrew Loveridge of WildCRU and a co-author of the study. The report shows that lion skeletons sold out of South Africa rose from around 50 in 2008 to 573 in 2011, most of which were destined for Asia. (Figures for more recent years are not yet available).
More detail here: [EN]