{"id":259699,"date":"2025-03-15T18:20:19","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T18:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/indias-tiger-boom-at-risk-trafficking-resurges-amid-soaring-demand-for-tiger-bones-in-china-vietnam\/"},"modified":"2025-03-15T18:20:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T18:20:19","slug":"indias-tiger-boom-at-risk-trafficking-resurges-amid-soaring-demand-for-tiger-bones-in-china-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/indias-tiger-boom-at-risk-trafficking-resurges-amid-soaring-demand-for-tiger-bones-in-china-vietnam\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s tiger boom at risk: Trafficking resurges amid soaring demand for tiger bones in China & Vietnam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"India\u2019s<\/div>


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June 2023. The streets of Guwahati swelled with a tide of half a million devotees as sadhus, tantriks and nomads, among others, flocked to the Kamakhya temple for the Ambubachi Mela, its holiest annual gathering. For Maya Devi, a woman in her forties from a nomadic tribe in north India, the jostling crowd in Assam\u2019s capital city offered the perfect cover to carry out something illegal.<\/p>\n

Maya\u2019s team\u2014which included another woman, two men and a child\u2014 was carrying the skin of an adult tiger and 17 kilos of bones. Before \u201csomeone from Meghalaya\u201d could come and collect the consignment from Maya, the police swooped in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were stunned to find that these were the remains of a second tiger\u2014 we had already missed the first tiger,\u201d says Pranjal Baruah, a range officer of Kamrup, Assam, who had spearheaded the initial probe. Forensic tests traced the skin to one of the three missing tigers from the faraway Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra.<\/p>\n

That was a clue something was going awry with the striped beast. Even as India\u2019s tiger population<\/a> has been steadily climbing over the past couple of decades, it could get derailed. A surging appetite for tiger bones in China<\/a> and Vietnam and the revival of a smuggling route through Mizoram-Myanmar have reignited dormant trafficking networks. <\/p>\n

The Assam case was transferred to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau<\/a> (WCCB), an arm of the ministry of environment and forests, which cracks down on organised wildlife crime. The agency\u2019s trail led to multiple arrests in Maharashtra. They also caught Mishram Jakhad, an octogenarian from Dwarka in Delhi, believed to be a key link between tiger poachers and smuggling syndicates. <\/p>\n

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Live Events<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


The wildlife sleuths pursuing the Guwahati case struggled to piece together the puzzle\u2014until two tiger poaching cases, one in Maharashtra\u2019s Chandrapur and the other in Madhya Pradesh\u2019s Jabalpur, threw light on the smuggling of tiger parts and the people involved in it. Maharashtra recorded 12 tiger deaths in just 24 days\u2014between December 30, 2024, and January 22, 2025\u2014 according to the state\u2019s forest department data, cited in a January 28 PTI report. Three deaths were attributed to poaching, while the rest stemmed from territorial clashes and electrocution. Meanwhile, two more tigers perished in Madhya Pradesh\u2019s Balaghat forests, deepening concerns about a resurgent trafficking network.Police in multiple states started cracking down, arresting more than a dozen individuals linked to tiger poaching. Among them were Ajit Rajgond alias Ajit Pardhi, who has a history of such offences, Lalneisung, a former Assam Rifles soldier from Shillong, Ning San Lun, a key smuggler with ties to Myanmar, her husband Kaplian Mung, and Zamkhankap, an Aizawl-based hawala operator. \u201cMoney traced to the former Assam Rifles soldier and others runs into crores of rupees. We suspect they must have smuggled out body parts of 10-12 tigers,\u201d says a forest official from Assam, requesting anonymity.<\/p>\n

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\"TIGER<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

ON THE PROWL<\/strong>
These organised rackets could thwart India\u2019s success story in tiger population growth. The tiger population in the country, according to the latest count in 2022, was 3,682 (range 3,167-3,925) from 1,411 in 2006, an impressive rise attributed to several measures, including better enforcement of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and liberal funds flowing from Project Tiger. For 2025-26, Rs 290 crore has been allocated to Project Tiger and Elephant \u2014 an 18% increase from the revised estimates for 2024-25.<\/p>\n

India is home to over 70% of the world\u2019s wild tiger population. There are 58 tiger reserves<\/a>, the latest being the Madhav National Park in Madhya Pradesh.<\/p>\n

Deaths of tigers<\/a> due to poaching and other unnatural reasons, like electrocution, have increased in recent years, raising alarm among tiger conservationists<\/a>. Between 2021 and 2023, poaching claimed the lives of 32 tigers across India, with Madhya Pradesh\u2019s forests bearing the brunt – losing 13 tigers, followed by eight in Maharashtra, according to a reply in Lok Sabha last November. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh accounted for three tiger deaths each, while Tamil Nadu reported two. Kerala, Uttarakhand and Bihar registered one poaching casualty each.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s little demand for tiger parts within India. So, poaching is largely driven by demand from abroad,\u201d says Subharanjan Sen, principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), Madhya Pradesh. \u201cWe believe China remains the primary market, where tiger bones are used in traditional medicines,\u201d he says, adding that multiple routes are in play now, apart from the traditional corridor through Nepal and Tibet. On an emerging demand from Vietnam, which has been flagged in recent surveys and reports, he says that trend has yet to be established.<\/p>\n

SKIN IN THE GAME<\/strong>
For years, tiger parts have been prized in China and Southeast Asian nations where these are used in traditional medicines for their purported pain-relieving and aphrodisiac qualities. Meanwhile, tiger skins are considered symbols of social status.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, there was a surge in poaching due to a rising demand for tiger fur in the US and European markets, which was largely supplied by China through Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe customs data from South Korea showed that the country had imported six tonnes of tiger bones between 1975 and 1992, which experts calculated would mean between 500 and 1,000 dead tigers,\u201d according to a 2005 report \u201cJoining the Dots\u201d, published by GoI\u2019s Tiger Task Force. It says, \u201cThe imports were from Indonesia and China which, it was assumed, meant that the country was being used for re-exports, as its own tigers were gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even now, demand for tiger parts is on the rise in Vietnam, which has barely any wild tigers left. This makes nations with robust tiger populations the prime hunting grounds for poachers.

CRYPTIC GLUE<\/strong>
A 2024 consumer survey by Traffic, a UK-based NGO, says there is demand for a new product among Vietnam\u2019s urban dwellers\u2014tiger bone glue. The substance is made by boiling tiger bones with other ingredients for several days, yielding a dense extract that is often dissolved in wine for consumption.<\/p>\n

The pressing question is whether the recent surge in tiger poaching in India<\/a> is anyway linked to the growing popularity of this distinctive product in Vietnam. \u201cWe don\u2019t have established information about linkages between the recent tiger poaching cases and the increasing trade in tiger bone glue,\u201d says Merwyn Fernandes, associate director, Wildlife Trade Control Programme, WWF-India, adding that Vietnam is known to breed tigers in captivity. \u201cThere is no way to distinguish captive tiger bones from wild tiger bones unless a genomic mechanism is adopted across tiger-range countries (TRC). Hence, we are working with the Indian government to standardise markers that can help bridge this gap,\u201d he says. Referring to the increase in tourists in Vietnam, Fernandes says the country has \u201cbecome a fancy destination where these products are available\u201d.<\/p>\n

Have government investigators probing the recent cases zeroed in on the Vietnam angle? \u201cOur investigation has traced the recent tiger poaching network up to Myanmar. Since Myanmar is primarily a transit nation, the final destination is likely China, as it often is,\u201d says Ritesh Sarothiya, head of Madhya Pradesh\u2019s Special Task Force and State Tiger Strike Force. \u201cAt this stage, however, we are not ruling out the possibility that end buyers could be from Vietnam or even Laos,\u201d he says, adding that the Aizawl\u2013Champhai route has become the most favoured corridor for wildlife smugglers.<\/p>\n

That route\u2014Shillong-Silchar-Aizawl-Champhai, to be precise, has also gained notoriety as a conduit for drug trafficking and the smuggling of exotic animals into India. Compounding the challenge, the takeover of Myanmar\u2019s border towns like Khawmawi and Rihkhawdar by Chin rebels since November 2023 has created a blind spot for Indian investigators, hampering the flow of reliable intelligence from across the international border.<\/p>\n

The money in tiger trade, Sarothiya says, is believed to flow through cash transactions, mainly hawala networks, as well as online platforms.<\/p>\n

Poaching tigers, he explains, is a specialised operation typically involving five to ten people. Many poachers are nomads, who set up temporary camps in vulnerable villages near forest areas. \u201cThey also sell quilts, plastic chairs, rudraksha beads and other items to mask their real intent,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Nitin Kakodkar, former principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), Maharashtra, says most poachers blend seamlessly with local communities. \u201cThey appear like ordinary villagers, often posing as traditional medicine practitioners,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

On the trafficking routes, he says, the Katni (Madhya Pradesh)-Delhi-Nepal-Tibet corridor has long been the preferred channel. \u201cThe tiger bone glue is a fairly new product. We hadn\u2019t heard of it earlier. The rising demand for it could be driving the shift of illegal trade routes towards Vietnam and other countries through the Northeast,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Sansar Chand, an infamous tiger poacher who died of cancer in 2014, had admitted to using the Nepal route for his operations. In 2006, during interrogation by the CBI, he reportedly confessed to selling 470 tiger skins\u2014 alongside thousands of leopard pelts \u2014to clients in Nepal and Tibet.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s, tiger poaching had reached such alarming levels that authorities declared there were no more tigers in the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan. The announcement in 2004 sent shockwaves across the country.<\/p>\n

A year earlier, in October 2003, customs officers in Tibet intercepted a consignment carrying 31 tiger skins, 581 leopard skins and 778 otter skins, leading to the arrest of three Indian traders in a town just across the Ladakh border. The evidence left little doubt that poaching had been taking place in India. \u201cInvestigators (in Tibet) found the Delhi edition of the daily newspaper, The Times of India, stuck to the backs of the skins,\u201d noted a 2005 report by the Tiger Task Force. It\u2019s time for the government, conservationists and big cat lovers to join forces and safeguard India\u2019s tiger triumph from slipping back into the jaws of peril.
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June 2023. The streets of Guwahati swelled with a tide of half a million devotees as sadhus, tantriks and nomads, among others, flocked to the Kamakhya temple for the Ambubachi Mela, its holiest annual gathering. For Maya Devi, a woman in her forties from a nomadic tribe in north India, the jostling crowd in Assam\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/118783427.cms","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[25890,2413,168,200371,189,925,200372,1115,5806,2721,200365,200370,200366,200369,200367,85743,200368,18708,14600,128429],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259701,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259699\/revisions\/259701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}