Following a high-profile bust and subsequent trial and fining of shahtoosh traders in Bangkok, Thailand, shops are no longer stocking this banned item, reports the New Straits Times

Effect of the Bangkok bust
New Straits Times
6 April 2008

The trade in wildlife meat and pets, as well as exotic flowers and plants, may one day be eliminated. An inter-governmental initiative which brings together law enforcers in the region to combat illegal wildlife trade is slowly but surely making headway, writes CHAI MEI LING.

IT didn’t do some 1,250 Tibetan antelope any good.

The evidence of their slaughter was the more than 250 shahtoosh shawls which the Thai wildlife crime task force seized when it busted a wildlife smuggling syndicate in Bangkok two years ago.

Shahtoosh, which means “Pleasure of Kings” in Persian, is woven from the delicate down fur of the endangered chiru or Tibetan antelope in Kashmir.

And as many as five antelopes are killed to get enough down fur for a single shawl.

Over the years, incessant poaching has reduced the one million antelopes that roamed the Tibetan Plateau early last century to 50,000 today.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/Focus/20080406095953/Article/index_html

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