Indian charged in US for toosh trade

Indian charged in US for toosh trade
PREETI V L

NEW JERSEY, JULY 17: In the US's first prosecution involving fleece, the US District Court of Newark held a Hong Kong resident, a New Jersey woman and an Indian export house guilty of violating the Endangered Species Act. They have been charged on one count of illegally exporting woollen shahtoosh shawls made from the fleece of the endangered Tibetan antelope.

According to Assistant US Attorney Henry Klingeman, the India-based Navarang Exports pleaded guilty to illegally importing more than 300 shahtoosh shawls, which retail for about $800 each.

According to prosecutors, Linda Ho-McAfee, 49, of Hong Kong and Janet MacKay-Benton, 42, of New Egypt, New Jersey, admitted that they exported shahtoosh shawls to Paris without filing a document with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

Both McAfee and MacKay, who were then working for the New Jersey company Cocoon, face a maximum of six months imprisonment and a $25,000 fine each.

Navarang Exports admitted through an attorney that it owed more than $31,000 in unpaid duty on the 308 shawls it imported and had also failed to obtain permits for their import either from US or Indian officials.

The company faces a maximum sentence of five years' probation and a $500,000 fine.

The shahtoosh shawls are made from the fleece of an antelope, Pantholops hodgsonii, which is protected in the United States by the Endangered Species Act. Its natural habitat is Tibet.

The Jammu and Kashmir government recently said that it was planning to ban the 600-year old controversial trade in shahtoosh. According to officials, half a million Kashmiris are associated with shahtoosh trade which has been banned since 1979 under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) because chiru is slaughtered for its wool.

Experts estimate that there are 75,000 to 100,000 chirus left in remote areas of Tibet and that as many as 20,000 a year are killed by gangs in China, who then smuggle hide and wool into India.

More than a million chiru may have roamed the Tibetan Plateau at the beginning of the century, but the population has been reduced by more than 90 per cent -- principally due to poaching -- and has been estimated to number less than 75,000.