Huge seizure of tiger skins, bear paws and saiga horns in Russian Far East

06/06/2007 00:00:00 January 2007, Local law enforcement officers in the Russian Far East stopped a car near the Chinese border and during a search of the car they discovered the largest haul of illegal wildlife items found in Russia for at least a decade. The driver of the car claimed he was delivering potatoes, however a search of the car yielded ‘531 saiga horns; 283 bear paws; 3 tiger skins; 8 tiger paws, and 332 bones and two skulls thought to come from tigers’.

It is thought that dozens of Amur tigers are killed by poachers annually in Primorye and Khabarovsk regions of Russia. Their skins and other body parts are destined for the Chinese. It is thought that the endangered Saiga horns are smuggled to Russia from Kazakhstan and onwards to China. In 2006, customs located in Primorye have found two other shipments of saiga horns with the total weight of 30 kg. All species represented in the consignment seized by the police are protected by Russian and international law. CITES (The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) lists the Amur tiger and the Asiatic black bear amongst the most endangered species, and the brown bear as endangered. The Russian law prohibits the taking, purchase, sale, transportation, or export of Red List species.