We have previously discussed how the growing Chinese market for exotic animal parts is wiping out the world’s populations of endangered and threatened animals. This week the extent of that slaughter was brutally evident in Russia where poachers have killed over 20,000 reindeer . . . only to cut their tongues out and leaving miles of rotting carcasses.
The images from WWF Russia are from the Evenkiysky district of Krasnoyarsk region from 800 locations. The population of the reindeer has fallen by half since year 2000. The wild reindeer population once numbered over 1 million. Climate change has clearly also reduced the herd.
These efforts are unlikely to succeed until China actively and honestly clamps down on this market for exotic animals for culinary and medicinal uses.