International Campaign for Tibet

Shahtoosh Wool Craze Spells Doom For Tibet's Chiru

Conservationists warned Thursday that growing trade in shahtoosh wool must stop or the Tibetan antelope, or chiru, will be hunted to extinction.

Some 20,000 of the wild animals that live on China's Tibetan Plateau are killed each year-either shot in herds by automatic weapons or caught in leg-hold traps-for their prized coats, that World Wide Fund for Nature said. Only an estimated 75,000 remain in the wild.

Dispelling fairytale myths that shepherds follow chiru herds to pluck their precious hair from the bushes they brush against while grazing, WWF's July Mills said: "Chiru cannot be shorn or plucked. This animal must be killed to obtain its hair. We're asking people to say 'no' to shatoosh, not to sell it, not to by it, not to wear it," Mills said at a news conference.

"By the mid-90s, rich women of Hong Kong known as "tai-tai" were hosting home sales and private showings of shahtoosh...not the least bit furtive about their passion," Mills said. Demand is known not only in Hong Kong, but major fashion centers in France, Italy and Spain and buyers were known to fly regularly to Delhi for private showings, she said.

Wildlife expert Wong How Man of the China Exploration and Research Society, who makes regular field trips to the Tibetan Plateau, spoke of the gore and horror surrounding the soft and warn shawls that celebrities drape over their ball gowns. "Poachers gun them down in herds and then make off at once with their coats, leaving the carcasses behind," Wong said.

During a trip June, a herd of 909 chiru carcasses were found in one spot. A third had been expectant mothers. "It's evident the killing's escalated. In 1991, lots were seen on the plateau. Now it's very difficult to spot them," Wong said, adding that profits were handsome enough for poachers.

Many of the poachers are Tibetans, armed with sophisticated weapons and vehicles.