v5i1.83

Published date: 15 June 2013
Pp. 1–5

EDITORIAL : Wildlife Poaching Increasing

Lee E. Harding*
*Section Editor: Taprobanica, the journal of Asian Biodiversity

After decades of endangered species protection and conservation success, poachers are staging a come–back. Most people in Europe and North America just don’t believe that rhinoceros horn, monkey meat, tiger penis or bear bile have any curative or health properties, but millions of people in East Asia and Southeast Asia believe otherwise. This cultural predilection is driving extinction. As repugnant as it is to those living outside the range of non–human primates, monkey meat provides a much–needed source of protein in some circumstances—but not enough to justify their extinction. There is no such nutritional excuse for poaching tigers, bears or rhinoceros. Since the start of 2008, at least 1800 white rhinoceroses and a few of the rarer black rhinoceroses have been killed in South Africa for their horns, most smuggled into Vietnam and China.