KARACHI, March 27 At least four white tigers, a rare and endangered wildlife species, have been brought into the country from Indonesia without necessary import documents, and two of them sold to the Lahore Zoo at 70 times their normal price, it has been learnt.

According to sources, the importer imported these tigers at around Rs50,000 per head and sold two of them to the zoo for around Rs3.8 million each, fuelling suspicion that either the supplier or the purchaser, or both, had earned huge profits at the cost of the public exchequer.

Experts say these white tigers are a colour variation of the Royal Bengal Tigers (Panthera tigris) and are a very rare and endangered species. Besides their unusual white hue, they also have blue eyes and pink noses. They say there is a misconception that the white tigers are albinos -- pigment is evident in white tiger's stripes.

The sources said that trans-boundary movement of the rare and endangered species was controlled by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and a certificate had to be obtained from the Geneva-based CITES Secretariat, and permission from the Islamabad-based National Council for Conservation of Wildlife (NCCW) was also a must before its import into the country.

The sources said these white tigers had been on display at the Lahore Zoo, drawing big crowds for the past many weeks.

Responding to queries by Dawn, NCCW officials said they had not issued any import permission for the tigers, making it clear that NCCW permission was mandatory and without it an endangered species animal could not be imported. And the customs officials posted at the international entry checkpoints would not allow import without the NCCW permit.

Answering another question that four tigers were had already been brought into the country in mid-February, the officials said since the NCCW had issued no permission for tigers' import from Indonesia, if tigers were brought into the country, their status was that of smuggled items and they would be confiscated by the relevant agency.

When Dawn approached the Lahore Zoo director, Yusuf Paul, he refused to give any information on the matter. However, after he was directed by his boss, Punjab Wildlife director-general Sher Alam Mahsood, he gave some information, though reluctantly.

Mr Paul said the zoo had purchased two female white tigers from supplier Mohammad Afzal of a

Lahore-based organisation, Animal World, for Rs7.6 million. These two-year-old tigers were imported from Indonesia and brought into the zoo a few weeks back, he said. About the price, he said it was competitive and the zoo had invited tenders and the contract was given on merit, following all relevant laws.

He, however, said he did not know for how much the supplier had imported them, or if the zoo was paying a high price.

The zoo chief, however, could not give any information about the mandatory NCCW import permit or even its issue date and said the permit could be in the relevant file, and he would provide the information soon. The NCCW permit information was not provided to this reporter in over a week despite repeated calls at his office in the zoo.

Responding to Dawn's queries, an official at Allama Iqbal International Airport said a consignment of four tigers was brought in from Indonesia by the Singapore Airlines on Feb 16, 2009 by Jawad Khan, a resident of North Nazimabad, Karachi.

Purchased from Jakarta-based Gasatwa Ragunan, the cost of the four tigers declared by the importer to the customs was around $1,233 - roughly Rs100,000, which brings the cost of one tiger at around Rs25,000. And customs and other duties paid on the four tigers was roughly Rs80,000, which means the duties on each tiger was around Rs20,000. The cost and duties on each tiger comes to around Rs45,000 and for both tigers it would be around Rs90,000. The supplier sold two tigers to the Lahore Zoo for Rs7.6 million, roughly around Rs3.8 million each, making a Rs3.75 million profit apiece, besides saving two tigers that he might sell to another such squanderer controlling some other zoo in the country.

The customs official had no idea what the CITES permit or the NCCW permit was.

Inquiry demanded

Conservationists have urged the authorities to institute a high-level inquiry into this wildlife trafficking and seize the smuggled tigers, recover the money from the suppliers and take stern action against the “real culprit” operating from behind the scene.

Various people have been smuggling tigers and lions into the country for a long time, not only violating various international nature conservation conventions signed by the country but also milking big profits in the process.

The whereabouts of these smuggled tigers and lions were also not known as they were kept as private collection. How these wild carnivorous animals are kept by these newly rich people is not known and safety might be compromised while keeping the animals out of sight of law enforcers.

The Sindh Wildlife Department had not shown any result as not a single of these smuggled animals was confiscated despite the fact the names, addresses and other details about the suspects are available with the wildlife department.

When these cases were widely reported in the media, the customs at the Karachi airport put their house in order and smuggling from that route halted. But it appears that now the wildlife traffickers have shifted to another route — Lahore