The appeal is also being broadcast once more on Radio 4 this Thursday, 27 February, at 3.27pm.
Tigers are in big trouble, one of the most high-profile victims of international illegal wildlife trade.
Only about 4,000 tigers remain in the wild due to poaching and habitat loss. Many thousands more are held captive in tiger farms to feed rising consumer demand for their skins, teeth, claws and meat.
Shockingly, criminals even profit from the dead tiger cubs born in commercial captivity, using them to make ‘tiger wine’.
China is the world’s leading destination for tiger body parts and has a massive tiger farming industry, with up to 6,000 kept captive for their ultimate use as skins for luxury home décor or as ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine.
Another 2,000 tigers are captive in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. In Vietnam, adult tigers and cubs are bred in cages in the backyards of ordinary houses – and sold by the kilo.
A donation to the Radio 4 Appeal would help give tigers and other gravely threatened species a fighting chance at a future, enabling us to continue our work exposing environmental crime.
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