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| Singapore Airlines says it has banned lion bones as cargo on its planes (AFP Photo/GREG BAKER) |
Singapore (AFP) - Singapore Airlines said Friday it has stopped accepting lion bones for cargo after the carrier was singled out in a report for transporting the animal parts from South Africa.
Campaigners
have long called for a ban on the controversial trade in big cat bones, which
are sought after for medicine and jewellery in Southeast Asia.
Singapore
Airlines was the sole carrier importing lion bones from South Africa to
Southeast Asia last year, according to a report released in July by the
non-profit EMS Foundation and animal rights group Ban Animal Trading.
At least
800 lion skeletons had been exported with the blessing of the South African
government in 2017, the report said, making it the world's largest exporter of
lion bones.
The airline
told AFP it had stopped accepting lion bones as cargo, but did not say when the
policy had come into effect.
"Singapore
Airlines does not accept the carriage of lion bones as cargo following a review
which took into account increasing concerns around the world," the company
said in an email.
EMS
Foundation director Michele Pickover said her organisation had sent the report
to the airline and "appealed to them to immediately stop its involvement
in this terrible trade".
"I
believe that once they were informed about what this trade entails they took
the correct and logical decision not to support it," she told AFP.
South
Africa has been sending lion bones to Southeast Asia since at least 2008 and it
was likely that Singapore Airlines had been transporting them since that year,
Pickover added.
Lion bones
and other body parts are highly sought after in parts of Southeast Asia --
particularly Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- for use in jewellery and for their
supposed medicinal properties.
In Vietnam,
lion bone is cooked and turned into balm while claws and teeth were used as
body ornaments, the report said.
While trade
of body parts from wild lions is banned, international treaties allow the sale
of parts taken from lions bred in captivity.
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