Education for Nature-Vietnam has slammed the Thanh Hoa Province administration for allowing official agencies to auction tiger-bone glue seized from a local resident.

 

According to the NGO, the province People’s Committee ordered Nov 19 the Finance, Health, and Forest Protection Departments and Traditional Medicine Hospital to auction 2.77 kilograms of glue made by killing a 61-kilogram tiger that was found in the house of Nguyen Mau Chien of Tho Xuan District.

 

ENV called it a shocking decision for conservationists and environmentalists because it makes tiger bone glue a legal product. Poaching or trading tiger and tiger parts is banned.

 

Glue made from tiger bones fetches VND50 million (US$2,562) per kilogram in the black market.

 

ENV said the glue should have been destroyed or handed over to a scientific research establishment.

 

ENV’s latest report shows 97 tigers are kept in captivity in Vietnam, 81 of them in private farms.

 

The rest are in state-owned zoos and wildlife rescue centers.

 

A report by the Worldwide Fund for Nature in March said there were only around 30 tigers left in the wild in Vietnam.

 

Poaching, shrinking habitats, and disappearance of prey species are the major reasons for their decline.

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