Tigers, bears and rhino traded in London (From Times Series)

Tigers, bears and rhino traded in London

2:36pm Friday 17th November 2006 in

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A tiger cub slaughtered and stuffed before his eyes could open, a polar bear rug on sale in Notting Hill and a rhino horn seized in Kensington today proved London's booming trade in illegal animal products.

Over the last decade, the Met's wildlife crackdown Operation Charm has seized more than 30,000 illegal animal items in the capital.

Some of the more bizarre items were:

• A tiger cub of a few days old, stuffed and put up for sale for £20,000. The cub was one of 65 stuffed animals found at Get Stuffed, a taxidermy shop in Islington. Six years ago dealer Robert Sklare was sentenced to six months for forging licenses, but he has since reopened his north London store.

• A polar bear rug found at a dealer in Notting Hill, who claimed it was 40 years old. But the condition of the nylon lining proved it was new. The dealer was convicted under custom laws.

• A haul of 138 shahtoosh shawls, worth over £350,000, at an exclusive Mayfair shop. About 1,000 of the rare Tibetan antelope had to be killed - no less than 2% of the 50,000 still left in the wild. But the Renaissance Corporation in South Audley Street was fined a paltry £1,500.

• In 1996 undercover police seized about 120 rhinoceros horns in Kensington, west London. The collection, worth nearly £3 million, represented almost 1% of the world's rhino population. Two men were jailed for a total of two years.

• Two hawksbill turtle shells were found hanging on a wall during a drugs raid in south-east London last year.

• Last month a Royal barber in Mayfair, George F Trumper Ltd, was fined £10,000 for selling illegal ivory shaving brushes for up to £1,100 each.

Now police are targeting the growing use of illegal animals in traditional remedies with a hard-hitting poster campaign.

Ounce for ounce, some endangered species products cost more than gold

Ounce for ounce, endangered species products like bear bile, rhino horn and musk cost more than gold.

The worldwide market in traditional Chinese medicine is growing by 18% a year, and in London such shops have become an everyday sight.

In the capital, the Met has seized plasters containing leopard bone, ointments made from musk, rhino horn pills, tiger bone wine, tortoise shell tea and bear bile shampoo.

Bear bile is tapped from the gall bladders of live Asiatic black bears held in cages little bigger than themselves. Twice a day, up to 20ml of bile is "milked" from each bear through a cut in their abdomen. The pain causes the bears to moan, bang their heads and even chew their own paws.

There are estimated to be about 4,000 bears held on bile farms in Vietnam and 9,000 in China. More than half of them die, or are left to starve once they stop producing bile.

Bear bile contains the acid Ursodiol, which breaks down gallstones. However, according to the Met's wildlife crime unit, there are at least 54 herbal alternatives.

Musk perfume, meanwhile, is taken from a gland in the abdomen of the male musk deer, found in Siberia, and the Himalayas. About 40 deer must be slaughtered to produce one kilogram of musk.

The growing demand for animal products has wiped out 98% of the world's black rhino since 1970, and has seen tiger numbers drop from 100,000 in 1900 to less than 5,000.

"It is quite unacceptable that illegal acts in London are contributing to the decline of creatures like the tiger," said Andy Fisher, the head of the Met's wildlife crime unit.

"In Operation Charm we want to stop the illegal trade in these animals in London. Anyone who persists in doing so could spend five years in prison."

In Britain, it is illegal it is illegal to trade in any product that is made from an endangered species, or even claims to be made from one.

Professor Bo-Ying Ma, President of the Federation of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said his industry backed the crackdown. "We are not utilising or selling such materials in any form."

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Look out for the Operation Charm sticker, which means a shop promises not to sell endangered animal wares.

• Ingredients must be listed on medicine. Check it for animal products, including Os Tigris (tiger bone), Cornu Rhinoceri (rhinoceros horn), Fel Ursi (bear bile) and Moschus (musk).

• Be wary of products with pictures of endangered animals.

• Report illegal products on the new Operation Charm website.