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Every few weeks there is another report of someone being arrested for involvement in the illegal animal trade. For example, in late February, a government official in Indonesia – where around 400 Sumatran tigers live – was busted for possession, among other things. Conservationists were notified that a tiger had been poisoned to death in a wildlife reserve in Riau province, and the suspect’s car was followed back to his house. Chemically preserved parts from various animals were found there, along with the poisoned tiger. Around the same time, Nepal Police arrested two endangered animal traders in the capital, Kathmandu, for possession of 15kg of tiger bones. The criminals were aged 32 and 19. They’re all part of the third most lucrative black market, worth $10-billion a year, behind drugs and weapons.  

This article is in conjunction with the piece I wrote, “The Orange and Black Market,” which particularly deals with tigers. Although I recommend you check that out before reading on, the tiger is not the holy grail of conservation. It is the flagship, says James Leape of World Wildlife Fund International, for broader conservation efforts.

Patrick Brown is a photographer who started investigating the illegal animal trade all over Asia since 2002. “The mythology of the animal trade, if you want to break it right down, it’s simple – you are what you eat,” he says. “If you consume a tiger, or part of the tiger, you will inherit something of that tiger.” In a moving 10-minute video called “Black Market,” he shows pictures of some of his long journey, and tells fascinating stories that are even more revealing than some of the most passionate researchers on this very topic. “A rhino takes two hours to mate. So someone a few centuries ago said ‘If you eat the horn of a rhino, you’ll mate for two hours.’ What a lot of people are doing now is soaking the rhino horn in Viagra because the horn is porous, it’s made of hair, and it’ll soak up the active ingredients – hence, the rhino horn works. So they can charge more money for the natural version than the synthetic.”  

The Rhino population fell from 70,000 in the 1960’s to about 4000 today. In Johannesburg, South Africa, one conservationist – only to be identified by his first name, Allan – took a Rhino onto his farm to keep her safe. The Rhino was named Phila (Zulu for “life”), and poachers at the soccer World Cup first shot her last July. Since Allan had already lost one rhino to poachers, he thought that it might help to deter poachers if he had her horns removed. …But they still came. They came at night, shooting at her, all for the short nub of a horn that was left. And then again, after Allan had guards set up to protect Phila, a helicopter came down low over the farm, clearly showing how she was still very vulnerable. She is now recovering in a zoo, with a bullet in her leg and another lodged in her nasal passage.

In Brown’s video, he explains that the value of these illegal commodities changes people. For example, after the police in India arrest traders and confiscate a rhino horn, the corruption soon becomes apparent. “There’s just too much money to be made in rhino horn.” He remarks that rhino horns are 5 times more valuable than gold in many places like Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Middle East. If corruption isn’t bad enough, there are instances where progress in conservation begets more greed. A census of great apes from three national parks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Uganda showed 480 gorillas, up from 380 seven years prior. However, the DRC has given two British oil companies permission to drill there – against the wishes of the European Union – despite receiving millions of dollars to preserve the forest. The DRC’s decision to make a coin on their national park reminds me of the research published last year about “green” shoppers. After doing some good, they feel that it's justified to do a little bad. So the oil may certainly impact the natural habitats of the gorillas, just as wars in the area have before. In 2007, for example, ten gorillas in the DRC were found dead by gunfire.  

One conservationist who has been gradually appearing more in the public spotlight is Alan Rabinowitz, an American zoologist who is battling cancer. This is the one and only guest on The Colbert Report who almost made host Stephen Colbert cry in 2008, telling his touching story of how he got involved in conservation. A few months ago, in a 60-minutes piece, correspondent Bob Simon met up with Rabinowitz. Rabinowitz took him to catch some footage of animals, including a once-in-a-lifetime clip of a jaguar in the water. “Killing a jaguar is believed by some tribes as being equivalent as killing an ancestor, and is said to condemn the killer to eternal damnation,” Simon says in the clip. “That myth has helped the Jaguar to survive.” While we can credit a foolish myth in the short term, it’s people like Rabinowitz – who was responsible for the Belize government establishing the world’s first jaguar preserve in 1984 – who are doing the real work. Relying on myths, visions, dreams, or hallucinations is dangerous, unreliable, and foolish. This is a lesson that not enough people with easy access to endangered species understand, such as the next person I want to introduce you to.

“Owl is the king of the birds and has enormous powers,” says Mehmood Ali, carpenter-turned-shaman in India. He says he can cure sleeplessness, restlessness, anxiety, and misfortune, and can “speak in your dream and [show] you the way,” or “vanquish your enemy.” Indeed, the “Ullu Tantra,” the book of owl rituals, has around 150 formulas, using things such as owl tears and egg shells as ingredients for magical abilities. Ali buys an owl in order to use its parts for whatever ritual he is to perform. Despite the ban on trading owl parts in 1972, Ali buys owls in various New Delhi shops. Customers are either from superstitious tribesmen who want to ward off evil spirits, or from townsfolk who believe in shamans or tantriks. Locals often advertise black magic ads in daily newspapers.  

An 18-year study published last November by the World Wildlife Fund reported that owls and their parts are mostly used for “black magic.” India is also a prominent owl supplier to Nepal, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Thailand, so clearly the owl population is quickly and violently shrinking. Even the popularity of the Harry Potter books and movies, which feature an owl named “Hedwig,” has unwittingly contributed to the dwindling numbers, since the urban middle classes tend to give these as gifts to children.

Ali once let an owl live after having purchased it, because he dreamt that its parents came and warned him against killing it. Ali released it because the owl parents threatened him and his children with curses. As great as it is that he release the bird, he’s just one hallucination away from doing something incredibly stupid and believing that it’s justified. Somebody, get this man a diagnosis.  

The best way to end poaching is to get rid of the demand. In the short-run, this entails a concerted effort to stay away from animal products of endangered species, and law enforcers must be diligent in cracking down on poaching. But in the long run, what’s really necessary is to have the public educated about the pseudoscience. Brown’s message at the end of his video is that the only way to stop this extinction is by making the world leaders change the situation. “The number one thing is to tell your local politicians that this is important to you.” This is certainly important because extinctions in the animal kingdom will surely have an effect on us humans. Not to mention the fact that this is probably the most sinister way imaginable to fund pseudoscience.

 

Ryo writes out of Tokyo, Japan, on the new blog skeptikai.com. Skeptikai is a platform for promoting science and critical thinking in a place where skepticism is limited, and superstitions are a part of the culture. Ryo writes about developments that go unnoticed outside of Japan, while trying to spread the word of reason throughout the country.