And a famed English painter makes a shahtoosh part of each new boyfriend's trousseau. Yet buyers somehow remain ignorant of the fact that each scarf equals the lives of several rare antelopes. Unlike sheep groomed for cashmere and pashmina, the chiru is killed. I thought it was just one of those pet projects of the eco-nags. In fact, it is the winter undercoat of the chiru that's prized.
Leghold traps are the method preferred by hunters on the Tibetan Plateau.
Gold prospectors in Xinjiang and Qinghai have been linked to wholesale machine-gun slaughters. By the time it reached market as finished product, however, the worth of a dead chiru would soar by eye-popping multiples. And some reports have linked the lucrative trade to the support of militant rebels in Kashmir. According to Wright and Kumar's report, there were perhaps 1 million chiru as recently as a decade ago. At last count, fewer than 75,000 survive.