IN NEPAL, PUBLICLY BURNING CONFISCATED ITEMS IS A WARNING TO THE ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE

On Monday, the Nepalese government set fire to more than 4,000 items of confiscated wildlife parts in an attempt to demonstrate zero tolerance for the illegal wildlife trade.

The stockpile included parts from 48 species, including 67 tiger skins, 418 common leopard skins, 354 elephant tails, 15 bear gallbladders, 357 rhino horns, two sacks of pangolin scales, and hides from red panda, clouded leopard, and snow leopard.

All these illegally trafficked items were burned in Chitwan National Park in front of nearly 300 people. Officials hope that the public burning of wildlife parts will act as a deterrent to wildlife traffickers.

"Nepal has achieved a significant milestone in conservation," Man Bahadur Khadka, director general of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, said in a statement. "The government of Nepal expresses its commitment to zero poaching and a non-tolerance towards wildlife crime."

The wildlife parts that were part of the burn on Monday have been collected over the last 20 years, the World Wildlife Fund said. Several items were already in various stages of decay.

Some confiscated wildlife parts did not make it to the burn. These included items retained by the Nepalese government for cases that are still under investigation, as well as parts that might help future scientific studies, WWF said. Elephant tusks were also excluded from the burn because the technology required for crushing the ivory before burning is reportedly unavailable in the country.

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