Rich red sander sofas in China stun officials

Addressing the participants at a symposium on modern forensic approach to handle wildlife crime on Saturday, Niraj, who formerly worked with Traffic India studying the cross-border wildlife poaching cases said, red sanders endemic to Andhra and Tamil Nadu are smuggled out for Chinese customers.

He further said, the trend has been consistently increasing due to the higher global demand. Today, sanders are one of the most sought-after wildlife produce occasionally overtaking ivories and tiger skins. Another worrying factor is that the leopard skins are now ending up in open markets of Afghanistan as the country is a hub for dealing with poached wildlife produce from India and other Asian countries, Niraj said. 

“The market of illegal wildlife crime in India has also grown along with Asian GDP and there is a need for the south Indian states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra to work in tandem,” Niraj said. In north India, Siliguri is a transit hub for smuggling and in south, Chennai is a transit point for smuggling out red sanders and protected marine 

species. Chennai has a potential to develop a network that can help the international community working on conservation and there is a need for more marine database to prevent wildlife poaching, C P Sharma, expert from Wildlife Institute of India told DT Next.