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2. ENDANGERED SPECIES – IN ABUNDANCE

2.1   Mass Extinctions and Blind Justice

"Over the years the dealer has obtained a reputation somewhat akin to the slave-trader; and it is a reputation many rightly deserve, for like the slavers they travel widely, enjoying the not inconsiderable profits of their venture, whilst their cargoes of horror lie concealed below decks, hidden from sight so as to disturb few consciences."

~ Bill Jordan and Stefan Ormrod ~

If, as Schiller said, "World history is the world's court of judgement", how then should we regard the circus menagerie today, so plainly a product of a bizarre and brutal ancestry? From its earliest beginnings in the circuses and amphitheatres of ancient Rome, the blood games of species supremacy drove many animals systematically towards extinction. When its malevolent ghost re-appeared centuries later, the circus soon came to play a pivotal role in the vast international trade in endangered species. Today, even by those favourite catchwords of the zoo and circus fraternity, "education" and "conservation," it must be difficult to explain to any wide-eyed child, just why there are now more tigers inhabiting barred menageries in Europe than the Asian wilderness.

Without doubt, history has seen anthropocentrism grow into such a rampant and insidious force, so deeply ingrained in human attitudes and reflected so destructively in human deeds that it is difficult not to ascribe its cause to some kind of perverse subconscious death wish. As I have already described in The Monk Seal Conspiracy, anthropocentrism's long and bleak tradition has taken a devastating toll upon the Earth. Its effects could be compared to a state of chronic war or to some debilitating malignant disease, inexorably draining the resistance of the body and the fortitude of the spirit. Environmental scientist David Sarokin has written: "Like any ailing patient, a sick planet displays symptoms. Dead dolphins wash up inexplicably on the beaches; tropical coral reefs and temperate forests are dying around the world; gaps in the ozone layer appear like open sores in the upper atmosphere. Rain, snow and fog are often hundreds of times more acidic than normal. Fish populations have unprecedented numbers of tumours. The planet is even running a fever: The summer of 1988 may one day be looked back upon as the first clear warning that the greenhouse effect had fundamentally changed the heat balance of our planet." This vivid analogy of Earth as a living being also forms the basis of Dr Jim Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, and although bolstered now by detailed ecological evidence, in substance it is a belated re-discovery of a world view that once nourished the cradle of civilisation more than 2000 years ago in ancient Greece. As one of the forefathers of contemporary ecology, Plato described Gaia, the Mother Earth, as "a living creature. . . endowed with soul and reason." Today, we can say that this ancient God, this creature upon which we dwell, is on verge of mortal illness, final proof perhaps that we, like the emperors of old that were so intent upon their own apotheosis, have, by means of the most brutal subjugation, won our much-cherished supremacy over the Earth, even if it threatens to end in our own demise.

Despite all the petty conflicts between nations, races, religions and philosophies, outside every single home, in every single village, town or city, in any country or culture in the world, there is the devastating irony of this uniting force: a species graveyard which stretches before the eyes, a graveyard that by the turn of the century may well contain a million headstones. Within a decade, the pall-bearers passing before our homes will be delivering to their graves at least one extinct species every hour. The fact that few people actually mourn the passing of these souls is a glaring testament to that deathly and virulent anthropocentrism which afflicts the human race. Indeed, even within the environmental movement, there are those who only seem to be saddened by these extinctions because their "usefulness to man" has been irretrievably lost - either as a food or medicine source, as components of a gene pool, or most hypocritically of all perhaps, as part of "man's natural heritage." Though they assert that this utilitarian philosophy will appeal to human nature's inevitable selfishness, it must, almost by definition, ultimately prove self-defeating, if only because the Earth will never be saved by deception, even Plato's well-intentioned "magnificent myth" or "noble lie." Such conservationists seem to have forgotten that at the very heart of our battered relationship with the planet - and often with our fellow human beings too - lies the festering wound of utilitarianism. As former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, has said, "The gulf that separates speciesism from racism is a narrow one indeed."

But while they face genocide in the wild, there are endangered species in abundance in the menagerie. Even a casual stroll around the circus can reveal this bizarre logic of an all-conquering species, the exhibits in barred beast wagons that seem to bear an uncanny resemblance to those freaks of nature which were so lucrative in circus side-shows during the last century - curious relics of the wild which homo sapiens is, according to God's wishes, civilising into oblivion.

Blind Justice

The chimpanzee, gorilla and orang-utan, the elephant and rhinoceros, the leopard and tiger - all of these species, so common to the circus menagerie, are listed in the Red Data Book, once rather cynically described as the ecologist's version of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Published by IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, it lists every kind of animal and plant according to its perceived ability to survive the onslaughts of the "Alpha" species, as either rare, threatened, or endangered. People may be forgiven for assuming that these animals are under strict protection; laws have the habit, even though they are only made of good intentions, paper, compromise and loopholes, of deluding the public into believing that a particular conservation problem has been irrevocably solved. Unfortunately, this too is little more than brittle illusion, as testified by the enduring billion dollar slave-trade in the most endangered of Earth's inhabitants.

The first international efforts to stem the traffic in wildlife took place in Washington D.C. in 1973, when 80 nations met to draft the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Prior to this there were few restrictions imposed upon this secretive industry, based, like any other, on encouraging mass consumption as a part of the inviolable law of supply and demand. More than any other factor, it was the hideous realities of animal dealing which finally awakened the public and brought pressure to bear on governments to clamp down on the barbarity of the trade - at least its more obvious, offensive barbarity. The industry which supplies the world's zoos, menageries and pet shops was exposed in graphic detail in the press: suffocated tigers packed in crates scarcely bigger than themselves, their faces still frozen into a grotesque mask of terror and agony; monkeys that had died of panic and overcrowding, spilling out of crates onto the concrete floor of the freight terminal; eagles with their eyelids crudely sewn together with stitches of string; a sun bear which had strangled itself on its own chain during the endless journey from Malaya. Though CITES has made substantial progress in curbing such outrageous abuses, few would pretend that the Bergen-Belsen of the animal kingdom has been eradicated; it has in fact merely been sanitised by regulation.

Under the Convention, which came into force in 1975, species are listed under Appendix I, II or III according to their estimated survival status. Except for "scientific considerations" - a loophole which sees thousands of exotic animals end up in laboratories and zoos every year - trade is banned in Appendix I species - those considered seriously threatened with extinction. Animals in this list include the chimpanzee, gorilla and orang-utan, cheetah, clouded leopard, Asiatic lion, tiger, snow leopard, Indian elephant and rhinoceros. For Appendix II species - potentially threatened by trade - commerce is permitted provided that the transaction is officially authorised by the country of origin. Included in this list is the bottlenose dolphin, that ever-smiling clown of world's oceanaria and, until very recently, the African elephant which faces extinction by the turn of the century. It is ironic perhaps that in practice traffic in Appendix II species is so liberal that many taxa now contained in this annex will probably have to be promoted aloft in years to come. Some 90% of all monkeys required for research, for example, are still being trapped in the wild. The International Primate Protection League estimates that one million primates are taken in this way every year, 200,000 reaching their destination, the other 800,000 dying during capture or transportation. Appendix III enables individual governments to list certain regional or endemic species which, while not considered endangered by the world at large, are deemed worthy of protection in their country of origin.

It has been said that in any law ever conceived, there must exist a loophole, and this is certainly true of CITES which, in recent years, has begun to look distinctly tattered. Even the CITES secretariat itself, based in Lausanne, admits that "there are loopholes which can be exploited by unscrupulous traders," adding that countries which resist becoming signatories to the Convention - such as Mexico, Cuba, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma - remain centres or conduits for international trafficking. Furthermore, despite some cursory monitoring by Interpol, the regulations are severely weakened by organised corruption, particularly in Third World countries where most of the species originate. While it is true that stricter enforcement of CITES has curbed the activities of some traders, it has also had the added effect of driving the more resilient, professional smugglers into the sleazy underground world of organised crime, with the Mafia controlling large chunks of a thriving black-market. Even embassies and consulates, with the privilege of diplomatic immunity, have been implicated in smuggling live endangered species. The animal trafficker, like his counterpart in the illegal drugs trade, stands to make stupendous profits. Indeed, according to former animal dealer Jean-Yves Domalain, many animal traders also traffic in drugs. The contraband is concealed in crates holding venomous snakes, snapping crocodiles or other similarly daunting beasts which understandably tend to deter rigorous inspections by customs officers. Sometimes, drugs may even be hidden inside the bodies of living animals.

In terms of profits - currently estimated to be in the region of $5 billion a year, including $1.5 billion worth of illegal deals - the international trade in endangered species is also said to rival global drug trafficking and one could make similar parallels as regards its propagation of misery and its power to corrupt. These however, are "only animals", and although drug addicts are not generally regarded as very much more superior by those who rule and regulate, when it comes to law enforcement, the analogy stops dead. While a veritable army of professionals is arrayed against drug growers, refiners, smugglers and dealers, by comparison there is little more than a rag-tag Dad's army sent out to intercept poachers, local and international animal dealers. Then there is the discrepancy in the penalties and sanctions of the law. If apprehended, members of an international heroin syndicate will face long prison sentences and confiscation of assets; an international dealer in endangered species on the other hand will be given little more than a slap on the wrist - a minuscule fine entirely out of proportion to his profits. This is just one of the reasons why CITES is being described as the animal dealer's charter. But there are others which are far more serious. Greenpeace, for example, has laid the blame squarely on CITES for the continuing market in endangered species, stating that a "momentum has gradually developed to change the purpose of CITES to one which promotes the trade in wildlife."

The reasons for such charges are highly complex, but by way of an introduction, they can best be illustrated by the CITES Secretariat's attitude towards two most pertinent issues, the poaching of lowland gorillas, and the illegal trade in ivory. All gorillas are strictly protected as Appendix I species under CITES, and normally the juvenile individuals so much in demand in the menagerie can only be caught by first killing their mothers and protecting adults. But in 1984, IUCN, which also acts as scientific adviser to CITES and is a sister organisation of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), inexplicably paid for seven lowland gorillas to be exported from the Cameroon to Holland, their final destination being Burgers Zoo, a commercial safari park in Arnhem. The juvenile animals had been captured by French expatriates Robert Roy and his wife, veteran animal dealers specialising in trafficking gorillas and chimpanzees. Though the International Primate Protection League (IPPL) and leading primatologists were actively campaigning to have the gorillas stay in their natural habitat by creating a survival and re-rehabilitation centre for orphaned individuals, their efforts were to no avail; behind the scenes, the transaction was being hustled through CITES' legal bottle-necks with scarcely more than a rumour of consultation, even though IPPL is actually a member of IUCN. When a furious Dr Shirley McGreal, Chairwoman of IPPL, discovered the surreptitious operation, she stated: "We couldn't believe that a conservation group would sink so low. They are even paying the dealers so-called 'expenses' for catching and exporting the gorillas" - an amount reputed to be in the region of $32,000. McGreal went on to say that in the closing stages of the deal, pressure was exerted on the President of Cameroon by high officials of the Dutch government and only then, with his apparently reluctant seal of approval, was the export permitted. The undermining of CITES for such demonstrably spurious reasons was underlined by the fact that the CITES authority in the USA had previously denied import permits for the seven gorillas, partly on the grounds that the dealers in question had already decimated wild gorilla populations in certain areas of Cameroon. Indeed, although the Director of Burgers' Zoo heaped praise upon the dealers, even going so far as to describe them as "conservationists", IPPL provided evidence that the Roys and their suppliers, had, over several decades, slaughtered hundreds of free-living gorillas during their capture of profitable gorilla babies for the world's menageries. "It appears strange," declared IPPL, "that the CITES Secretariat does not seem to have files on known or suspected animal dealers, especially dealers as well-known and long-established as the Roys. Even though IPPL existed before CITES did, we have never been invited to contribute data to CITES files." But both IUCN and CITES remained distinctly unmoved by such revelations, IUCN declaring that the gorillas "indirectly serve the conservation of nature if they breed and one can give the offspring to other zoos." McGreal concluded that "it will be very hard for IUCN to intervene with any moral authority now to seek an end of trade from the Cameroon or anywhere else in Africa." With the price on the head of a baby gorilla having reached $125,000, IPPL emphasised that none could be considered safe from poachers. Although justified by CITES and IUCN as a "one-shot deal," gorillas continued to be exported from the Cameroon, including three destined for Taipei zoo in 1987 in a transaction orchestrated by the notorious German dealer Walter Sensen, with export papers which the Cameroon government later declared to be forgeries. Two of the young animals, already having seen their mothers and families shot before their very eyes, died of panic and suffocation during transport. But like most live animal cargoes, this one too was insured, to the tune of $445,000. Thus, even if an animal, confined to a metal or wooden crate, does perish during a long and arduous journey, most dealers still stand to make a lucrative "insurance killing".

The annual trade in ivory continues to kill 89,000 elephants every year, according to IUCN. Those deaths translate into some 825 tons of raw ivory, with a market value of $50 million. Most of this is sold in Asia where it is converted into worked ivory worth about $500 million. Despite the much-vaunted rigours of CITES, the on-going trade is inexorably driving the African elephant towards extinction. There are now thought to be only 700,000 elephants left on the entire continent compared to 1.5 million ten years ago, and many ecologists predict that by the year 2000, the species may well have disappeared forever.

Proclaiming 1988 the "Year of the Elephant" in the USA, the African Wildlife Federation (AWF) launched a consumer boycott of ivory products aimed at stemming the death toll. At that time, the USA and Japan was supporting almost two-thirds of the world demand for ivory, representing the deaths of 60,000 elephants a year, while EEC countries, up until June 1989, were annually importing ivory amounting to 12,000 elephants. According to Cynthia Moss, a senior researcher at the AWF, "at least 80% of ivory on the market today is from poached elephants - even if it comes with all the correct papers certifying it as legal." The trade, she added, is systematically circumventing the provisions of CITES. While strenuously denying the charge that CITES is becoming an institution which promotes rather than regulates the trade in endangered species, Jacques Berney, Deputy Director General of the Secretariat in Lausanne, described the ivory consumer boycott as "unworkable," and added that "CITES is actively campaigning against it." The basis for this extraordinary stand was the claim that much of the ivory on the international market is in the form of antique worked pieces. Yet even Berney himself conceded that such ivory "could be from poached animals" because it is "impractical to make a distinction between old and new worked ivory at border controls." Hoping to stem illegal traffic in ivory, for many years CITES put its faith in the so-called "quota system" which allowed individual African governments to decide annually how many elephants could be "legally culled" in their own countries. This was despite the fact that it is virtually impossible to ascertain the difference between "legal" and "illegal" ivory and the fact - well known to CITES - that several governments in the region are also intimately involved in black market trafficking. CITES' reasoning however, was based upon the notion of "sustainable utilization" of the elephant, revealing once again, just how successful avarice can be when masquerading as objective, hard-headed pragmatism. "Any import ban will backfire on conservation because it will halt legal elephant hunting under the quota system," insisted Berney. "Countries would have no incentive to protect their elephant populations." Though the notion of protecting animals by shooting them may seem somewhat peculiar, Berney justified the CITES policy as being grounded upon the IUCN and WWF policy of "sustainable development", adding that "probably the best chance for the survival of wildlife is to give it an economic value as a renewable resource." Yet even discounting the offensive notion of viewing the elephant as no more than a human asset, it was patently obvious that the "utilization" of the species was not, by any means, "sustainable". Declared elephant specialist Dr Fred Kurt: "These dealers fully expect the African elephant to become extinct and that is precisely why they're stock-piling as much ivory as they can lay their hands on. I've been told by people involved in the trade that in the future ivory will be worth more than its weight in gold. Now you can imagine why there is this free-for-all over ivory. These dealers are actually speculating on the elephant's extinction." Despite such warnings however, even WWF International campaigned against the boycott - until an unexpected wave of public sympathy for the elephant suddenly overturned its ill-fated and increasingly embarrassing policy. It is reported that in 1988, shortly before his retirement, EEC Environment Commissioner Stanley Clinton Davies, was preparing a report to submit to the Council of Ministers which would espouse the cause of the ivory boycott. It was then that WWF International stepped in, eventually persuading him to scrap it. Yet with opposition to the quota system mounting steadily even within Africa, CITES, WWF International and other diehards were soon shown to be fighting a losing battle. Indeed, under massive pressure, the EEC finally imposed a ban on ivory imports in June 1989, and a blanket - though still provisional - import ban was achieved a few months later when the parties to CITES, meeting in Geneva, voted to promote the African elephant into Appendix I. Unless it is undermined by certain African nations applying for exemptions, this move will also have the added effect of closing down the trade in African elephant calfs destined for the circus - these animals usually being the offspring of those killed under the quota system.

Ruthlessly efficient, the animal-trafficking industry is actually producing greater annual wealth than the gross national product of some Third World countries where much of the trade in endangered species originates. And it is here where we stumble across one of the inherent and intractable of all problems confronting CITES. That is the insidious seesaw of supply and demand of endangered species, involving the chronic poverty of the Third World on one hand, and on the other, the over-consumption in the rich, industrialised world. In 1979, according to IUCN - four years after CITES came into force - the demand for luxury goods in the developed world led to the deaths of 2 million crocodiles, 500,000 wildcats and 70,000 elephants. Bowing as usual to the sacredness of the free market, those who originally drafted CITES took little or no account of the fact that free enterprise would inevitably continue to be the dynamic driving force of the industry - those haute couture boutiques in New York, Paris, London and Rome for instance, where the closer to extinction an animal is, the more exclusive, luxurious and coveted is its skin. The same principle governs the entire market, from authentic turtle soup to genuine turtle-shell spectacle frames, from real crocodile handbags and shoes, to ivory carvings. Even for a wild animal destined to be incarcerated for life, free enterprise is the guiding principle, whether that be for the zoo, the circus, the private menagerie or the laboratory. It is a vicious and cut-throat business, and although it may be pragmatic to say, as apologists for the trade so often do, that "responsible animal traders take measures to prevent any contravention of CITES," this may well be regarded as being just one more testament to this golden age of illusion. With profits as the sole motivating force, it would be more accurate to say that illegal trafficking is even implicitly encouraged by a convention that does not prohibit but only regulate the trade in endangered species.

For a network of international dealers, dealing syndicates and national brokers, the incentive for the trade is greed grown rampant with cold-blooded cynicism; for the locals they exploit as poachers and animal catchers however, the incentive is often no more than grinding poverty and ignorance - at least in the beginning. If poachers are now materialising that have undergone rigorous military training and who are equipped with kalashnikov assault rifles, machine-guns and hand grenades, then that is the result of growing sophistication on the part of an industry that believes that having been given an inch, it'll take a mile. Indeed, if the trend continues as it has, then - just like those 12-year old cocaine barons in the United States equipped with a weapons and electronic armoury already daunting even for the police to challenge - within a decade, we should not be surprised to see poachers furnished with mortars, armoured cars, even tanks. Indeed, that day may have already arrived. Only recently, poachers within Kenya's Mount Elgon national park killed several elephants with an antitank gun. Even more disturbing, in 1988, South African military forces were implicated in a huge ivory racket reputed to have caused the decimation of Angola's elephant population. Over 100,000 elephants are said to have been massacred by the Unita rebels of Jonas Savimbi in Angola, in order to finance the war there. Condemning South Africa as "one of the largest wildlife outlaws in the world", Craig van Note, Vice President of Monitor, a consortium of US environmental and animal welfare groups, reported that most of the elephant tusks were being carried out on South African air transports or trucks - all with the complicity of South African officials at the highest levels. Savimbi, in an interview with Paris Match, recently admitted that he has financed much of the war with ivory, diamonds and teak.

There is a reason for this escalation of the animal trade beyond the capitalist canon that all money must grow. In this case, endemic poverty, chronic injustice and abuse of power has provided a fertile soil for a politicisation of the trade, by now resembling an insurgency in several countries. To some extent, poaching may also be a result of "leadership by example" - the idea that the "man in the street" should look up with pride towards his leaders and thus inspired, adjust his lifestyle accordingly. But when the president, his army chiefs and security forces are all on the make, sooner or later, the entire bureaucracy becomes riddled with corruption, and all that remains of respect for the law is cynicism. The fact that heads of state have regularly been implicated in organised poaching is hardly likely to inspire reverence for the protection of endangered species. In 1984, for example, no less than five African presidents were accused of fostering the killing of elephants. Adding to the confusion, former big-game hunters now appear on the scene as the heads of international conservation organisations, preaching the creed of "sustainable utilization of endangered species". The subsequent culling of "excess" animals - excess in this context usually meaning that they have outgrown the reservations allotted to them, not that they have suddenly become un-endangered - can do little else than encourage poaching. Furthermore, as Jacques Berney himself admits, despite the efforts of CITES, "there will always be poaching - anti-poaching units are just too expensive and no one is prepared to pay for them."

On the other hand, some people are prepared to pay handsomely to shoot elephants, hippos and wildcats - as much as $1500 a day for African hunting safaris. Indeed, in this new concept in tourism and recreation, business is booming. Take the example of Jet Tours, an enterprise run in association with run Air France. In its hunting and fishing catalogue 1988/89 the company offers the adventure of a life-time for the would-be big game hunter, together with detailed advice on how to mount trophies. The European bison can be hunted in Poland, while Bulgaria offers the European brown bear, the much-despised wolf, and the European wild cat. For something a little more exotic, the brown bear and the lynx can also be shot in Mongolia. At the top-end of the price list, the crocodile, lion, leopard, hippopotamus, and even elephant can be hunted in a variety of countries including Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A discreetly presented box on the last page of the brochure has the heading 'Washington Convention' where it is stated: "For certain animals like the brown bear, wolf, Turkestan-deer, Hartmann's zebra and Roanne's antelope, that are listed on Appendix II of the Convention, it is necessary to obtain a certificate of origin to ease the import of the trophy into France. We provide advice on this matter." In case it is difficult to tell from the small print the difference between the legal and illegal shooting of an elephant in Africa, just imagine what it's like for the down-trodden and hungry where laws have always stolen, never given. In such a climate seething with contradictions, smuggling, poaching rapidly becomes endemic in one form or another. Not that Third World countries alone are liable to graft and corruption. In what it derisively calls the 'revolving door phenomenon', the International Primate Protection League states that "ex-government officials find work as consultants because they know their way around the departments where they used to work and how to get information, and even, occasionally, which officials are subject to bribes. At least one former senior official of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 'revolved' out of the Service's door to become a lobbyist for animal dealers, big game hunters, ivory traders and furriers. Mr Richard Parsons was formerly Director of the Federal Wildlife Permit Office, which is supposed to regulate the importation of endangered wildlife to the United States. In 1983, Parsons quit this position and turned up at the meeting of CITES as a representative of an animal dealers' lobby. At subsequent meetings, Mr Parsons has represented the trigger-happy big game hunters of the Safari Club International (who had applied in 1981 to import to the US 'trophies' of gorillas, orang-utans, and over 50 other endangered species) and a U.S. fur industry lobby."

But what of loopholes affecting the trade in live animals for display, loopholes which allow animal dealers like Walter Sensen of Zoo Agentur in West Germany, for example, to trade in lowland gorillas, or offer rare Commerson dolphins for sale with full CITES documentation? Or circuses throughout the world to obtain Appendix I elephants from Asia?

"Animal supplies to the circus are all subject to the Washington Convention," insists Dr Thomas Althaus, an ethologist at Switzerland's Federal Veterinary Office. "It is impossible now to import endangered species from the wild for primarily commercial purposes. It's not possible to import leopards, jaguars, tigers or snow leopards or Asian elephants. Most are captive bred or the others are pre-convention animals - old elephants for example that were imported in the 1950's." Yet by hook or by crook, some circuses are still managing to acquire Appendix I Asian elephants by exploiting CITES loopholes. Switzerland's prestigious Circus Knie for example recently imported two new baby elephants from Burma which is not a member of CITES. Explains Dr Fred Kurt, who was once a close associate of Circus Knie: "In the 1970's, Lufthansa, on it inaugural jumbo jet cargo flight from Delhi to Frankfurt, carried a dozen baby elephants and they went to Walter Sensen, the German animal dealer. Now I always thought that with the Washington Convention things would change but it didn't stop circuses like Knie getting new Asian elephants, even though it is officially not permitted. But Althaus - who gives out the permits - is a very close friend of Louis Knie and whether he sees these matters very objectively, I'm not so sure. To me it seems very strange indeed that Burma allowed the export of these two baby elephants when at the same time the country - worried about the decline of its elephant population - has requested international assistance for their elephant captive breeding project." Vigorously opposed to such trade, Kurt believes that the elephants should stay in their natural habitat. "In certain elephant camps in Asia," he explains, "there are often too many baby elephants. Because there may be no work for them, the people who run these camps then try to sell them but in my view it would be better to keep these elephants in Asian national parks to use them for traditional forestry work where there are no roads, and with local people. And there they can always play an ecological role." Instead, the two Burmese baby elephants are now destined for a life in chains. Reported Zoo Check's co-founder, Bill Travers, who visited Circus Knie in Zürich in April 1989: "The worst sight was the heaving and shuddering of the two baby Asian elephants. This they did continually when they were not tugging at their chains which fixed them to the centre of their wooden platform. One elephant, standing next to them, was acting as an auntie, and reached out frequently with her trunk to touch and comfort them."

Even CITES itself reluctantly admits that much of the illicit trade in live animals for display is carried out with the help of people assigned to protect them, though it rarely, if ever, names names. In some countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, dealers can purchase signed but blank health certificates, and - with appropriate backsheesh - official export documents. Over the years, this has led to a strengthening of documentary requirements, though they can still be by-passed through several exploitable clauses. One is that a "Pre-Convention" Appendix I animal is officially regarded as being Appendix II and CITES concedes that the Pre-Convention clause "can be used to cover continued illegal trade." Similarly, an animal of a strictly endangered species testified as being captive-bred is also summarily demoted to Appendix II. Basically, all that is needed to prove this is an 'official' paper from the country of origin - even if that country is not a member of CITES.

A slight variation of the 'captive-bred' ruse is to declare that a wild-caught animal has been in human hands too long for it to be returned to its natural habitat. In 1988, for example, German trafficker Walter Sensen wrote the following letter to a menagerie client eager to obtain an Appendix I gorilla:

For the travelling circus crossing international borders there may be another exploitable loophole when it is intent upon buying or replacing an animal. This revolves around the "transit" or "temporary export" permit afforded to circuses under CITES. Before leaving their country of origin, circuses are obliged to make an inventory of the animals that they will be carrying with them in their wagons. Though in principle customs officials should check against the list the animals being exported, in practice such a thorough inspection is seldom made, allowing the circus to add animals unnoticed to their menagerie. Pier Lorenzo Florio, director of the Italian branch of TRAFFIC, a WWF-affiliated organisation which monitors the trade in endangered species, advocates stricter CITES control of circuses. "Only God knows where they get their animals from," he declares, "but they are undoubtedly dealing in animals, and contravening the terms of the agreement. It cannot be explained for instance why so many circuses in Italy have infant chimpanzees, which are photographed for a fee being held and cuddled by members of the audience." Florio, who is also a member of the Italian CITES Management Authority, surmises that Italian circuses buy the chimps while on tour in Spain, and then import them illegally into Italy, failing to declare the new additions to their menagerie on inventory forms. Itinerant beach photographers who ply their trade along the holiday coasts of Spain and the Canary Islands are thought to be at the forefront of this continuing black-market trade. Wild-caught in Africa, the chimps are crated up, 6-8 to each wooden box, and put on a tramp steamer bound for Spain. Transported with no food or maternal care, it has been estimated that for every chimp that arrives in Spain, 10 have died. As 180 individuals are thought to be in use at any one time by the beach photographers, this is calculated to represent the deaths, from capture and transport, of 1,620 others. To render them docile, the chimps, who are often worked for 16 hours a day, are shot full of sedatives and some have their teeth broken off so they can't bite the customers. They are routinely killed or sold-off after 2 or 3 years when they become unmanageable. Though a party to CITES, Spain has yet to seriously crack-down on the trade, and the country also remains a major centre for trafficking in gorillas. "In late 1987," IPPL reports, "two gorillas were exported from Spain to Japan. A CITES export permit was issued by Spanish wildlife authorities claiming that the gorillas were 'captive-born.' An investigation conducted by IPPL (Spain) revealed that the gorillas were probably 'captive-born in the jungle!' The animals were supposedly bred at the Ringland Circus in Aldea, Spain. Spanish conservationists visiting the circus found the place 'fenced like a fortress' with 'at least 6 guard dogs roaming around to discourage unwanted intruders'. They also learned that, in a recent police raid on the facility, inspectors found 5 young chimpanzees, one large adult chimpanzee, one bonobo (Pigmy chimpanzee), 5 leopards and a Pigmy hippo. The chimpanzees were found by accident: as the inspectors were leaving, a large circus trailer drew up. The inspectors ordered it opened up, and found the chimpanzees inside. From the documents, it appeared that the animals had arrived that very morning by a boat entering the port of Valencia from an unknown location (presumably somewhere in Africa, most probably Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony, from which four gorillas were exported in late 1987). Equatorial Guinea is also the suspected supplier of 'beach chimpanzees' to Spain." Black-market trafficking to supply the needs of the circus and menagerie has also included other endangered species. In 1988, a forlorn and ailing Asian elephant was discovered in a crate in Rotterdam. Her skin had turned to parchment during her month-long journey from Vietnam and she was reputed to be "in a pitiful state." Similarly, even the critically-endangered Mediterranean monk seal has been made to pose in the circus arena. In 1985, it is reported, the last seals of Tunisia's Galite archipelago became extinct when two of the animals were captured for an Italian travelling circus, the remaining individual succumbing to the harpoon of a snorkelling Italian tourist.

On top of all this, CITES regards conservation as something entirely different from animal welfare. A government which provides export documents to an animal dealer has no obligation or right to enquire into the standard of facilities which that animal will be subjected to upon arrival, and this may be one reason why there is a lively re-export trade in animals to establishments in the Third World where conditions can be so primitive that a life of suffering or a premature death is virtually inevitable. "It is only for Appendix I species that it is clearly mentioned that the importer must be suitably equipped to house and care for it," says Jacques Berney, adding that this is the sole responsibility of the importing country. "For Appendix II species, there are no provisions, since animal welfare and husbandry concerns are expected to be covered by national legislation." All too often however, such legislation may either be inadequate or non-existent. It was thus that in 1988, the Swiss authorities permitted the export of two dolphins to Egypt, where they ended up languishing in a hotel swimming pool for a year, and another dolphin belonging to the same dealer became the sole occupant of a minuscule open-air pool in a safari park in Austria, even though solitary confinement of this kind is well-known to be cruel to such gregarious animals. According to Berney, there are no provisions within the agreement which might prevent a person who is incapable of ensuring an animal's welfare from owning a dolphin or any other similarly-classified species.

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