Inspection Tiger rangers use tiger skin as bait to catch traffickers

Inspection Tiger, a network of anti-poaching patrols set up 10 years ago in Russia, embodied a radical new approach to conservation.

At that time, as many as 70 Amur tigers a year were being killed and there were only a few hundred left.

Since then, tiger numbers were thought to have stabilised, but they are still under threat.

To tackle armed poachers on the ground, Inspection Tiger wanted "state inspector status", giving them the right to carry guns and issue fines.

This World: Tiger Traffic Tuesday, 8 March, 2005 2100 GMT on BBC Two (UK)

And although this was granted, their powers are proving largely ineffective.

Penalties, if enforced are often as little as $50 or less than the price of a UK parking ticket.

Sometimes the poachers are actually Russian officials who know that Inspection Tiger cannot really do anything to stop them.

There is big money involved in this global industry.

Tiger body parts can be sold for as much as $50,000 (�26,500) and the traffickers are highly organised, often dealing with buyers in neighbouring countries.

Tiger Traffic follows Steve Galster, co-founder of Inspection Tiger, as he moves with a patrol on Russia's Pacific coast, near the border of China and North Korea.

Having fought for eight years against tiger poachers with very limited resources, they continue to risk their lives patrolling the world's most inhospitable terrain, going undercover, and secretly filming their prey.