Fig 1.
Lion skeletons, skull and claws before being sent for taxidermy, and a box of cleaned and prepared lion bones ready for export to Southeast Asia (bottom right) (V.L. Williams).
Table 1.
Total number of lion skeletons and bodies a originating from Africa listed on issued CITES permits and destined for East-Southeast Asia from 2008–2015.
Figures do not represent the actual annual exported quantities b.
Fig 2.
Actual annual quarterly exports of sets of lion skeletons from South Africa to East-Southeast Asia from 2014–2016, obtained from air waybill records provided by a freight forwarding company handling the exports on behalf of six lion bone traders.
Fig 3.
Actual annual exports of sets of lion skeletons from South Africa to Laos, Vietnam and Thailand from 2014–2016, obtained from air waybill records provided by a freight forwarding company handling the exports on behalf of six lion bone traders.
Table 2.
Quantities listed on CITES permits issued by South African provinces to export lion skeletons (SKE) to East-Southeast Asia from 2008–2015.
Fig 4.
Combined number of lion skeletons and bodies sourced from Africa and listed on issued CITES permits from 2008–2015 (histogram), compared to air waybill records (black line, South Africa only) for actual exports of skeletons to East-Southeast Asia from 2014–2016.
CITES permit records for skeletons and bones represent the maximum permitted annual quantity and not the actual annual exports.
Table 3.
Number and proportion of wild-sourced and captive-bred lion bodies and skeletons originating in South Africa listed on issued CITES permits and destined for East-Southeast Asia from 2008–2015.
Fig 5.
Annual number of lion skeletons and bodies by purpose code originating in South Africa listed on issued CITES permits and destined for East-Southeast Asia from 2008–2015.
In addition, permits for five bodies and 47 skeletons, all for commercial purposes, were issued from other African countries in the same period. The insert shows the total quantity and percentage for skeletons and bodies. See S1 Fig for the purpose codes for skeletons on permits issued to Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and China.