Day by day, hour by hour, our planet’s rarest creatures are being hunted, trapped and slaughtered to feed a global black market in wildlife products.
For years, Patrick Brown has traveled across Asia to document the devastating impact of wildlife trafficking. Now he’d like to bring his work to a worldwide audience, by producing a campaigning photographic book called “Trading to Extinction.”
It is a shocking tale of cruelty, crime and human greed. As with drug trafficking, money fuels the animal trade. Its tentacles wrap around the world, from the remote forests of Asia to the trafficking hubs of Beijing, Bangkok, London, Tokyo and New York.
A poacher who kills a rhino and removes its horn in India gets $350. That same horn sells for $1,000 in a nearby market town. By the time it reaches Hong Kong, Beijing or the Middle East, the horn is worth $370,000. Tiger bones are worth up to $700 per kilo.
Until the trade between the poachers and there Hong Kong buyers is stopped the Chinese will eat all of our endangered animals to extinction. What you see in the shops is just small change compared to that being ‘stockpiled’ for the future in warehouses. For the ‘extinction’ of a species will drive up the price 100,000 fold. Currently elephant, tiger & rhino also most sharks will disappear in the wild within 20 years. Who can stop this trade now? only the President of China, and he is sitting on his hands as China eats.
I find it funny that people is willing to make a distinction between tigers and chicken or cattle, I suspect it can be a case of double morals. we are fucked.
very disturbing … however, criticisms are that of people’s & cultures livelihood and means of economy … terribly and tragic to other cultures but to the “sellers” it is their way of life … very sad none the less … esp graphic the crocodiles and sharks swimming in the restaurant foyer which can be your dinner in the next 30 minutes …