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The Black Market in China for Tiger Products

Paper available here

Abstract:
China is an important source of demand for tiger products. Given most wild
tiger populations are found in neighboring Asian states, criminal
organizations have developed to procure, transport and distribute tiger
products. Their organizational form adjusts to reduce the most significant
transaction cost faced at each stage in the supply chain. Procurement is
subcontracted to skilled local hunters. Tiger forms a minority part of a
wider portfolio of wildlife harvested by poachers. Transport to the Chinese
border is the largest cost and minimized by use scale economies to transport
wildlife products in bulk. Successful criminal organizations have evaded
detection for years. In China Tibet absorbs part of the demand for skin, while
bone is consumed as medicine in Eastern provinces. There is not a
homogenous black market in tiger parts in China. Harsh penalties in China
for tiger trafficking favor networks that specialize in the distribution of
just tiger bone, with few intermediaries and likely in secretive settings.
Transaction costs limit the penetration of tiger parts to provinces that are
proximate to range states. The ability of law enforcement agencies to reduce
poaching to safe levels appears unlikely given the evasions strategies
available to smugglers.