Tibetan antelope are poached to make luxury wraps

Tibetan antelope are poached to make luxury wraps, called shahtooshes, from their soft, warm underfur. Four of the animals are killed to make a single shahtoosh—Persian for “king of wools.”Apr 24, 2019

Tibetan antelope are poached to make luxury wraps, called shahtooshes, from their soft, warm underfur. Four of the animals are killed to make a single shahtoosh—Persian for “king of wools.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY XI ZHINONG, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY

ANIMALSWILDLIFE WATCH
A rare antelope is being killed to make $20,000 scarves

The luxury market for shahtoosh is imperiling the Tibetan antelope.

12 MINUTE READ








BY DINA FINE MARON



PUBLISHED APRIL 24, 2019






CASTASEGNA, SWITZERLANDGiovanni Albertini is accustomed to opulence. At this checkpoint on the Switzerland-Italy border, a two-hour drive from Milan, he spends his days evaluating well-coiffed travelers and scouring their Gucci and Louis Vuitton luggage for contraband. He and his Swiss border patrol colleagues have assessed diamonds, pricey wines, and caviar, among other luxuries.


But the drab scarf spread out before him now would not immediately impress. Wrinkled, beige, speckled with tiny, crinkly hairs, its only embellishment was a small fringe at each end. And yet this seemingly unremarkable wrap could be another valuable piece of contraband.


Two hours earlier, Albertini had glimpsed it around the neck of a middle-aged Italian woman traveling with her husband in a silver Audi. The corporal pulled their car over because he suspected the shawl might be shahtoosh—the “king of wools” in Persian—a very expensive, ultrasoft, ultrawarm wool that is almost always illegal to import, trade, or even own.






Shahtoosh comes from the short, warm fleece of the rare Tibetan antelope, a species found almost exclusively in the Changtang area of Tibet, on the Tibetan Plateau. It takes four animals to provide enough wool for just one shahtoosh shawl or scarf.


Because the antelope are wild animals that can’t be domesticated and shorn, the only way to get the wool is to kill them and strip it from their carcasses. Smugglers then sneak the raw wool into India, where artisans in Kashmir weave it into neck-warming wraps.


It takes four Tibetan antelope to provide enough wool for just one scarf.


Global demand for shahtoosh wiped out 90 percent of the Tibetan antelope population during the previous century, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which sets the conservation status of wildlife species. Once a valued dowry item in India, shahtooshes are now sought primarily by Westerners, who may pay as much as $20,000 for a single shawl of the right size, color, and design.


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The origin of shahtoosh long was shrouded in rumor. One common myth was that it came from the down of a “Siberian goose.” Another was that the Tibetan antelope naturally shed its wool, and those hair clumps were then gathered up by nomads. Yet researchers have learned a lot about what goes into the shahtoosh trade, and they’ve seen the carnage from poaching.


Conservation biologist George Schaller, who has studied the Tibetan antelope since the 1980s as part of his work for the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society, says the sight of Tibetan antelope in the wild is exhilarating. “The males are spectacularly beautiful with their long, thin horns and black and white winter coats,” he says, adding that when the tan females and their young start moving en masse, it looks as if an entire hill is in motion. The phenomenon is all the more stunning, he says, because it happens in such a wild, remote landscape. “You have thousands of square miles with no people at all.”






On the move, a herd of Tibetan antelope raises the dust in China’s Qinghai Province.
PHOTOGRAPH BY XI ZHINONG, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY



I first ran a shahtoosh through my fingers in a basement room tucked away in a residential neighborhood of Bern, Switzerland, surrounded by thousands—if not millions—of confiscated wildlife products. The locked room was located off a hallway that smelled like rotten cheese (government food-safety tests were under way nearby).


In one corner, a display case held hundreds of shahtooshes of varying shapes and sizes. “This very small one is likely for a child,” explained Lisa Bradbury, pointing to an item about the size of a handkerchief. Bradbury advises the Swiss office that enforces the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Switzerland. (CITES is the international treaty that regulates cross-border trade of protected wildlife.)


Most of the shahtooshes she showed me were quite large—about three feet by six feet. I wrapped one, an unadorned royal purple shawl, around my shoulders and took in its delicate weave and buttery softness. I could see why someone might want a shahtoosh—if you didn’t know about the animals killed for it.






Global demand for shahtoosh wiped out 90 percent of the Tibetan antelope population during the previous century.PHOTOGRAPH BY XI ZHINONG, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY



Tibetan antelope once may have numbered about a million, but by the 1990s their numbers had fallen to 75,000. They began recovering in the first decade of this century, with stronger habitat protections in China and better enforcement of the animal’s strict CITES listing, which bars any international trade of the species.


Even so, Swiss officials say they’ve been seeing a lot of shahtoosh lately. Between 2015 and 2018, customs officers seized the equivalent of more than 800 Tibetan antelope from the necks or luggage of travelers primarily from Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Middle East. Modern designs, including elaborate embroidery and patterns, suggest that at least some of the shahtooshes were newly made.


The week before my February visit to the Castasegna checkpoint, Swiss customs discovered three more shahtooshes—the equivalent of 12 dead Tibetan antelope.