FACTBOX-Why are Asia's endangered animals so sought after?

(For related story see MYANMAR WILDLIFE or [ID:n BKK62017])

Sept. 3 (Reuters) - Home to tigers, bears, pangolins and many of the world's other rarest animals, Asia is also a hotspot for the illegal wildlife trade which the international police organization Interpol estimates may be worth more than $20 billion a year.

Here are some facts about three of the continent's endangered animals and their commercial uses.

BEARS:

-- All of the world's eight species of bears are endangered, and five of them live in Asia.

-- Paws from the Asiatic Black Bear and the Malaysian Sun Bear are used to make bears paw soup, and bile from their gall bladders -- dubbed "liquid gold" because of its astronomical price -- is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) remedies said to cure eye irritations, fevers and liver problems.

-- Bear bile is a legal product in China and North Korea, but banned elsewhere as the Asiatic Black Bear is a CITES* Appendix I animal. Chinese bear farms are thought to supply black-market overseas networks, and have been accused of buying bears from poachers in Myanmar and other neighbouring countries to fill the bear farms which milk caged captives for bile.

TIGER:

-- Three of the world's nine tiger sub-species fell extinct last century, and many scientists believe a fourth, the South China tiger is already "functionally extinct".

-- Poached from forests and sold to traders for as little as $10, almost every part of Asia's biggest big cat has commercial value. Skins are sold as rugs and cloaks on the black market, where a single skin can fetch as much as $20,000. Tiger meat is marketed as giving "strength", and bones are ground into powders or immersed in vats of wine to make curative "tiger bone wine" tonics for the TCM market.

-- As tiger numbers plummeted, China banned all trade in tiger products in 1993. But environmental groups say some tiger products are still available, and tiger farmers are petitioning for the ban to be lifted.

PANGOLIN:

-- Found only in Asia and Africa, the largely solitary and nocturnal pangolin, or "scaly anteater" is sought after in Asia for its meat, considered a delicacy in some communities, and for its scaly skin, which is made into distinctively-patterned leather handbags and shoes.

-- Pangolin scales are also revered in Traditional Chinese Medecine. Scales are sold whole, or ground up with herbs and pangolin blood, to cure ailments from allergies to sexually transmitted diseases.

-- Asian pangolins are listed in Appendix II of CITES, which allows for limited trade. But a special "zero quota" was adopted in 2000 banning all international trade, in recognition of the threat the thriving unregulated market posed to them.

* CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. It includes almost 170 countries, including China and all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Sources: Reuters, The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) (www.wwf.biz/about_wwf/what_we_do/species/news/stories/index.cfm ?uNewsID=15278) Interpol (www.interpol.int/Public/EnvironmentalCrime/Wildlife/Default.asp ) ((Writing by Gill Murdoch, Singapore Editorial Reference Unit, gill.murdoch@reuters.com, Reuters Messaging gill.murdoch.reuters.com@reuters.net; +65 6870 3922))