According to an article by Reuters, wildlife in Myanmar (Burma) is slowly being depleted due to the demand in China for exotic species.

If the market of Mong La is anything to go by, the remaining wild elephants, tigers and bears in Myanmar’s forests are being hunted down slowly and sold to China.

Nestled in hills in a rebel-controlled enclave on the Chinese border, the “Las Vegas in the jungle” casino town is clearly branching out from narcotics and prostitution into the illegal wildlife business.

Besides row upon row of fruit, vegetables and cheap plastic sandals, the market offers a grisly array of animal parts, as well as many live specimens, to the hundreds of Chinese tourists who flock across the border each day.

Bear paws and gall bladders, elephant tusks and chunks of hide, tiger and leopard skins, as well as big cat teeth and deer horn are all openly on display next to crudely welded cages of live macaques, cobras, Burmese star tortoises and pangolins.

For more information on this market, please visit our Animal and Wildlife Smuggling page.