- This is a list of the ,,World Wide Fund For Nature" (WWF) -
1. African Elephant: The commercial ivory trade has been banned internationally
since 1989.
However "white gold" is still smuggled, mainly because the authorities of many
African countries do not thoroughly check compliance with the existing strict
laws.
2. Tiger: China is considering to pick up again the national trade ban on tiger products.
According to the WWF, this would be a death sentence for the most 5,000 to 7,000 wild
tigers that still exist worldwide.
Even today, poachers hunting the big cats in order to sell their skins and bones.
In particular, tiger bones are still used in traditional Asian medicine illegally as a
remedy.
3. Apes: All great apes - orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos -
are still highly threatened by poaching and trade. They are also traded as "pets".
4. Tibetan antelope: Their fur is the Tibetan antelope|s doom:
their fur is processed to fine wool and later to Shahtoosh scarves,
to achieve the maximum prices of up to 10,000 euros per piece.
For each shawl up to five animals have to die.
5. Red coral: The most valuable among the coral is traded for over 5,000 years,
the Romans cured with coral powder poisoning.
The marine animals from the Mediterranean are popular as jewelry.
There are now only a preponderance of small colonies left, who are not capable
of reproducing.
6. Eel: Overfishing has lead to a collapse of the European eel stocks.
7. Porbeagle: The medium-sized, hiking-lovers shark is hunted for its particularly tasty
applicable flesh and its fins.
In German plates porbeagle ends as "Lake Sturgeon" or "calf fish".
Often this shark also ends up as fertilizer.
8. Asian rhinos: One of the most threatened animal of the large mammal species:
there are onlz about 50 animals of the Jaza Rhino left,
from the Sumatran rhino not more than 320 individuals.
The horn of the animals are illegally used in traditional Asian medicine -
and especially the logging of their forest habitat will lead to their extinction.
9. Sawfish: The population of these very eye-catching animals have declined dramatically
in recent years. The seven species of sawfish are traded for aquariums,
but are also popular for dishes.
Their typical saw-like snouts are sold as souvenirs or ritual weapons,
other body parts are used in traditional Asian medicine.
10. Dogfish: The slender shark with a short, pointed snout lives in the North Sea,
in the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Black Sea.
In Germany dogfish is sold as conger eel, in the UK dogfish is part of "fish and chips".
The spiny dogfish is heavily overfished and has declined in the Northeast Atlantic since
the 1960s to more than 90 percent.