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https://www.yahoo.com/gma/lions-men...one-trade-081946243--abc-news-topstories.html
Kris Everatt was tracking lion prides as part of his conservation research in Mozambique's Limpopo National Park when he came across dozens of dead vultures near a waterhole.
As he walked closer to the waterhole, he saw the mutilated bodies of three lions. Their faces and paws were missing.
"I'd never seen a lion with its head and feet cut off before," said Everatt, the Mozambique program manager for Panthera, a global wild cat conservation organization. "But I knew they were poisoned."
That was more than five years ago. Since then, the number of lions in Limpopo National Park has plunged from 67 to about 10 or less, according to Everatt, who began studying the park's lion population in 2011. Each was poisoned by suspected poachers, and the animals that scavenged their carcasses dropped dead too, he said.
Many of the lions were found with their heads and paws hacked off, while others were only missing their teeth and claws. Some were completely deboned, with just their butchered flesh and skin remaining, Everatt said
In Asia, lion bone is often sold as a substitute for increasingly scarce tiger parts in lavish products, such as fortified wines and cakes. Tiger parts, which have long been used as remedies in traditional Chinese medicine, have become a status symbol in East and Southeast Asian countries. But with just a few thousand wild tigers left in the world, tiger bone is harder to get and more expensive. So dealers and vendors are taking advantage of the fact that tiger and lion bones are virtually indistinguishable, according to Karl Ammann, a Swiss conservation activist, wildlife photographer, author and filmmaker who has investigated the wildlife trade in Africa and Asia.
Kris Everatt was tracking lion prides as part of his conservation research in Mozambique's Limpopo National Park when he came across dozens of dead vultures near a waterhole.
As he walked closer to the waterhole, he saw the mutilated bodies of three lions. Their faces and paws were missing.
"I'd never seen a lion with its head and feet cut off before," said Everatt, the Mozambique program manager for Panthera, a global wild cat conservation organization. "But I knew they were poisoned."
That was more than five years ago. Since then, the number of lions in Limpopo National Park has plunged from 67 to about 10 or less, according to Everatt, who began studying the park's lion population in 2011. Each was poisoned by suspected poachers, and the animals that scavenged their carcasses dropped dead too, he said.
Many of the lions were found with their heads and paws hacked off, while others were only missing their teeth and claws. Some were completely deboned, with just their butchered flesh and skin remaining, Everatt said
In Asia, lion bone is often sold as a substitute for increasingly scarce tiger parts in lavish products, such as fortified wines and cakes. Tiger parts, which have long been used as remedies in traditional Chinese medicine, have become a status symbol in East and Southeast Asian countries. But with just a few thousand wild tigers left in the world, tiger bone is harder to get and more expensive. So dealers and vendors are taking advantage of the fact that tiger and lion bones are virtually indistinguishable, according to Karl Ammann, a Swiss conservation activist, wildlife photographer, author and filmmaker who has investigated the wildlife trade in Africa and Asia.
