Once again, I lapsed into period of silence. Too much happened the past few weeks, I went from London to Malacca then to Lim Chu Kang for reservist, all in a span of 5 weeks.
It’s good to be back. Tired from traveling and work, I just thought I’ll share this before I call it a night.
I’m working on a documentary which examines the state of the critically endangered Tibetan Antelope or otherwise known as the Chiru.
This little creature is one of the five mascots picked for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and most ironically, with the current rate of poaching, they could very likely be extinct by then.
They have their odds stacked against them. First from the development of the rangeland for gold mining, then competition with the local domesticated herds. But most importantly, they’re hunted for their wool. Their wool, also known as Shahtoosh is fine, soft and warm, and is largely used in the fashion industry to make into shatoosh shawls. The wool can only be obtained by killing the animal, and it’s usually the helpless young and the pregnant females which gets killed for this as the males have long horns and are usually harder to catch because they’re faster and stronger.
Now since only the females and young are taken, the numbers of this species is in steep decline since the ability to repopulate is near impossible. Given that the population dropped by 92% since the turn of the 20th century, there isn’t much time to left before they join the Dodo and the Moa as another testimony of man’s ability to extinct a species in modern history. This time, it’s not for food like the two birds, but to feed a greed of another kind.
Here’s the cigarette-pack-warning moment:
So if you walk along the boutiques of Paris or Milan or even some parts of New Delhi and North Asia, please don’t buy any shawls made of Shahtoosh. It’s nice and warm, yes. But certainly its better left on the calf and its mother.
More photos on my Flickr page
All photos courtesy of ARKive
All photos copyright of Vivek Menon/naturepl.com and Xi Zhi Nong/naturepl.com
