Buying tiger-skin rug is against the law

PHILADELPHIA – A New Jersey man was charged this past week with buying a $6,800 tiger-skin rug in violation of federal wildlife conservation laws.

Authorities said that Loren Varga, 60, of Franklin Park, bought the pelt in Pennsylvania last month and agreed to plead guilty at a forthcoming court hearing in Philadelphia.

The Endangered Species Act makes buying, selling, importing or exporting tiger fur or body parts a federal crime punishable by up to a year in prison and $50,000 in fines.

On his Facebook page, Varga identifies himself as an employee in the radiology department at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., an avid world traveler and antique collector, and a descendant of Charlemagne.

The population of wild tigers has been decimated over the past century by poaching and habitat destruction. In 2015, conservationists estimated that the global wild tiger population had plummeted to fewer than 4,000 — down from around 100,000 at the start of the 20th century. The U.S. government and animal welfare groups estimate that more tigers live in captivity in U.S. zoos and private menageries than remain in the wild.

Despite conservationists' efforts to protect them, a thriving global black market for tiger parts persists.

In China, tiger bone wine — made from the creature's crushed bones, left to macerate for years in rice liqueur — is a status symbol. Tiger pelts, often sold in the form of decorative rugs, sell for thousands of dollars on closely guarded private Facebook groups and online auction sites, according to a 2018 complaint filed by the National Whistleblower Center with the U.S. Securities and Exchange ­Commission.

Federal prosecutions of people seeking to buy or sell tiger parts are uncommon, but last year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife investigators in Wichita, Kan., set up a sting operation that caught a man offering to pay $8,000 for two tiger pelts for his home office.

Philadelphia inquirer