A wildlife trafficker in the Nam Dinh province of Vietnam was arrested by the police after he tried selling frozen tiger cubs to a client. The 26-year-old man, who goes by the name Pham Van Tu, claims that he had bought the cubs from a market at the border of Vietnam and Laos for VND2 million (£60) and was planning to sell them for VND8 million (£250).
Several gangs are part of an illegal trade network that openly advertises tiger parts and cubs on social media websites to attract prospective buyers. These body parts are then bought so that their meat, skin, claws and bones can be used for preparing a kind of ‘glue’ that is believed to have healing properties. Rampant tiger poaching has caused such profound damage to Vietnam’s wild tiger population that there could be as few as 30 wild tigers left in Vietnam and Laos, according to some reports.
Dr. Pieter Kat, a scientist at LionAid, says that there’s strong evidence that Vietnam, like China is breeding tigers in captivity to meet the high demand for producing special ‘traditional medicines’, according to the Express.
