Tigers, Rhinos Near Extinction as Superstition Survives : Conservation: Huge profits are available to those who traffic in body parts of ferocious animals. Millions still believe that consuming tiger bone or bear paw brings luck, good health, strength, courage, even virility.

Padding back and forth behind bars, the tiger appeared oblivious to the chattering family of tourists just arrived at Ocean World amusement park in this north coast town.

At length, the muscular female stopped and presented her rear end to the loudest in the group, a teen-age girl. The girl leaned over the railing in front of the cage for a better look. With the timing of a vaudevillian, the tiger expelled a sudden, explosive stream of urine.

Fortunately the target was wearing glasses, though her pink dress was drenched.

“Maybe it will bring good luck,” her father laughed.

Wu Hung, a Buddhist monk and animal-rights activist in the capital, Taipei, shook his head sadly when he heard the story. “People should not keep tigers in captivity,” he said. “But it’s better than eating them.”

Asian fascination with tigers goes well beyond viewing them in cages. Millions still believe that consuming body parts of tigers and other ferocious animals, including bears and poisonous snakes, brings luck, good health, strength, courage, even virility.

As more countries have joined in efforts to eliminate the international trade in wildlife products, it increasingly has gone underground. But the industry still flourishes, driven by tremendous profits available to those who exploit traditional beliefs.

“With all the recent publicity, shops here no longer display endangered wildlife,” said Lu Dao Jye of TRAFFIC Taiwan, part of a worldwide wildlife advocacy organization. “But the products are still there, under the counter.”

In Taiwan, China and Korea, men pay $320 to rejuvenate their libidos by eating tiger-penis soup.

Crushed tiger bones are said to cure a variety of diseases, including ulcers, high blood pressure and rheumatism. Similar claims are made for bear-paw meat, bear gallbladders, snake blood and rhinoceros horn.

Although the strongest demand for such products is in Asia, it is also present in many ethnic Chinese communities in Europe, South America and the United States.

Authorities estimate the value of illegal trade in wildlife worldwide at $5 billion.

Because of the tremendous demand, and difficulty in enforcing restrictions, many wildlife experts despair of wiping out the species-threatening trade.

“It is difficult to maintain optimistic feelings regarding the long-term future of such endangered animals as the tiger and the rhino unless the countries involved rigorously honor recent commitments to stamp out the trade,” said Rob Parry-Jones of TRAFFIC East Asia.

Rhinoceros and tiger populations are declining so fast that the animals could face extinction by the end of the century.

The number of wild tigers has fallen by 95% this century, with an estimated 7,400 left. The estimated rhino population is 10,000.

Only five species of tigers remain: the South China, Bengal, Siberian, Sumatran and Indochinese. In the last 50 years, three subspecies have vanished.

“If the world does not respond immediately, we will lose one of the planet’s most imperiled wild animals,” said Elizabeth Kemf, species conservation coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund.

For many years, animals from Africa supplied the demand for medicinal products in Asia. But with moves during the 1970s and 1980s by several African nations to conserve wildlife stocks, traffickers have turned to Asia itself, especially to Vietnam.

Today, once-plentiful tigers and rhinoceroses are nearly extinct in Vietnam, where wildlife conservation has a lower priority than even this under-the-table form of economic development.

Vietnam, like many other countries facing the same problems, has had spotty success in combatting poachers. Forest rangers must patrol thousands of square miles of jungle. Paid the equivalent of about 50 cents a day for this dangerous occupation, they are vulnerable to bribes.

Unsuccessful in shutting off the supply, concerned nations have taken to applying economic pressure on consuming countries.

Saying the world’s tiger and rhinoceros populations “remain gravely endangered,” President Clinton last April barred all wildlife imports from Taiwan. It was the first time the United States had used trade sanctions to protect an endangered species, and the first time U.S. sanctions had been imposed on Taiwan for any reason.

Wildlife products such as snakeskin shoes, coral and mussel-shell jewelry and tropical fish make up just a fraction of Taiwan’s $25-billion annual exports to the United States. Nevertheless, many Taiwanese complained that they were being made scapegoats, because no sanctions were leveled at mainland China.

Restrictions were not then justified against the mainland, Clinton said, because Beijing has made progress in dealing with threats to endangered species--including burning supplies of tiger bone and rhino horn held by the government.

Administration officials also admitted that they intended to deal with mainland China separately because of other sensitive pending issues, including human rights and the nuclear controversy in North Korea.

In November, 10 Asian nations joined a global initiative to save the tiger: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. At a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, they presented a resolution calling for voluntary trade bans on domestic tigers.

The resolution represents a pledge by the countries to stop all domestic trade in tiger parts. It also calls for more border patrols to eliminate poaching, as well as more conservation efforts and campaigns to persuade people not to consume tiger products.

Wu Hung’s Life Conservationist Assn. distributes literature showing the painful results of animal abuse. Although he concedes that many Taiwanese resent being singled out for sanctions, he believes the sanctions serve a useful purpose.

“If sanctions aren’t applied, the government won’t take the issue seriously,” Wu Hung said. “International pressure is basically helpful. It makes people reflect on what’s happening to wildlife.”