Sumatran Tiger © WWF-Canon / H. DILLER
For tigers everywhere, things have reached a crisis point.
Do you suffer from aching joints? Muscle pain? Has your love life got you down?
It’s okay. There’s a cure. It costs only a few bucks, plus the life of a critically endangered
tiger. No big deal. The sad reality is that, despite trade bans on products and traditional medicines made from tiger parts, these products continue to be in demand.
It’s a problem that’s not only happening in other countries thousands of miles away – it’s also happening right here in Canada. Canadians still illegally import,
export, buy and sell remedies, charms, trophies and other objects made from tigers and tiger parts. And sadly, it’s not only tigers.
In recent years:
- A Manitoba company was convicted of smuggling more than 200 critically endangered orchid plants into Canada
- 11 British Columbian men were arrested for trafficking in the parts and pieces of bald eagles
- Ontario and Quebec authorities broke up a black bear gall bladder trafficking network linked to international markets
Our planet is facing a global species extinction crisis.
Internationally, rhinos have been hunted almost to extinction for their horns. Young orangutans are caught in the wild and sold as pets. Freshwater turtles are
disappearing from all over Asia because of demand for their meat, shells and eggs. Sharks are killed for their fins to make soup. And many other marine species,
such as the bluefin tuna and the European eel, are at risk because of over-harvesting to meet the increasing global demand for their meat.
 International and local laws have guaranteed that killing tigers and many other species for their parts is illegal throughout the world. Enforcement of these
laws has helped – but not enough. The killing still goes on. What’s worse, enforcement has forced poachers and smugglers to go deeper underground and become
harder to find. But we’ve got to keep after them.
You may wonder how we can win the war against poachers and smugglers. With the help of our supporters, WWF sponsors a powerful weapon: TRAFFIC — the world’s
most respected wildlife trade monitoring program. This means we can:
- Investigate, report on and assist authorities in catching poachers and work to shut down their smuggling routes.
- Provide governments with unbiased, science-based information on wildlife trade issues so that decisions can be made that truly help further conservation.
- Maintain our TRAFFIC program as the global expert in helping governments implement CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora) – arguably the most effective international conservation treaty in existence. In fact, no species, once protected by CITES, has gone extinct due to trade.
Already, with the help of our dedicated supporters, we have encouraged the 171 member countries of CITES to protect thousands of species from illegal and unsustainable trade. Plus, we’ve
successfully lobbied Environment Canada to add 100 enforcement officers to its ranks, significantly increasing their ability to halt illegal wildlife trade. We are making progress. But the biggest fight still lies ahead.
WWF works constantly with TRAFFIC experts to protect species from unsustainable and illegal wildlife trade and pushes to get the people and money needed for the
enforcement of CITES at our international borders.
The plain fact is, to save tigers and other threatened wildlife, we need to fund the work we do. Support our efforts to protect tigers and other species threatened
by illegal or unsustainable trade. Make a donation today. Your donation will empower us to step up our actions to save endangered wildlife in Canada and around the world.
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