In 2011, there were 13 large-scale seizures of ivory and over 23 tons of ivory confiscated. This is equivalent to at least 2,500 elephants. Typically the largest adults, with the biggest tusks are poached – putting the matriarchs of elephant herds at the greatest risk.
Bear gall bladders get top dollar for Chinese herbal remedies. And big-horned sheep antlers can fetch $20,000 on the black market.
Tigers are primarily killed to supply underground black markets with its organs, pelts, and bones. These items are highly regarded in eastern medicine, in Asia, tiger parts (other than the bone) are used in mythological medicine. This includes: the eyes, hair, internal organs, even tiger penis – which is used in a soup as an aphrodisiac.
Many countries believe that the rhino horn is an important ingredient for many medicines. This is false. Rhino horn has the same medicinal effect as chewing on your fingernails aka none.
Wildlife crime is a big business. Run by dangerous international networks, wildlife and animal parts are trafficked much like illegal drugs and arms
What began as subsistence hunting quickly grew into an illicit commercial trade in gorilla meat that sees the animals butchered, transported and sold. An increasing number of them make it as far as cities, where restaurants serve up “bushmeat” to wealthy clientele. If that weren’t enough, poachers have begun to target gorillas for their body parts, to be used in folk remedies or simply as trophies. Heads, hands and feet are said to be particularly popular.
Hunting lemurs for their meat, which has reportedly increased in the chaos that followed Madagascar’s 2009 coup, is also diminishing their tiny numbers. Despite legislation that makes killing them illegal, lemurs are poached either to be sold to restaurants or simply to be eaten by impoverished locals desperate for food. Popular targets is the hawksbill, the tropical turtle whose beautiful yellow-and-brown shell provides the commodity known as tortoiseshell. Millions of the animals have been killed over the past century to feed the fashion for tortoiseshell jewelry, glasses, ornaments, instruments and other items. The result? The species is now critically endangered. The international trade has been banned for almost 40 years, but a black market continues to thrive in Asia, notably China and Japan, and in the Americas.