High-priced wool fine enough to slip through a wedding ring

[Guest guest]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Anyone who would pay up to $15,000 for a wool shawl that

could slip through a wedding ring is being asked to resist the temptation and

join an effort to protect Tibetan antelope.

 

While shahtoosh, the ``king of wools,'' spells ultra-chic and

ultra-expensive to the world of high fashion, it means death for the three to

five Tibetan chiru antelopes that have to be killed to produce one large

shawl.

 

Enlisting the aid of supermodel Shalom Harlow, the Washington-based World

Wildlife Fund and the Wildlife Conservation Society launched a campaign today

to stop use of the illegal luxury fiber they said was being sold in Hong Kong,

Paris, New York and elsewhere.

 

The campaign coincided with an investigation by a New Jersey grand jury

that has subpoenaed New York socialites and celebrities and followed a meeting

on conservation of the Tibetan antelope in Xining, China, last week. The

meeting included representatives of China, France, India, Nepal, Britain and

the United States.

 

Last month, a Chinese court sentenced a farmer to 12 years in prison for

poaching 88 Tibetan chiru antelope, according to the state-run Xinhua News

Agency. China began a crackdown on the poaching in April. The farmer got the

equivalent of $63 each for the rare hides.

 

Shahtoosh shawls, which sell undecorated for $2,000 and embroidered for up

to $15,000, are said to be so fine that even a large one can be pulled through

a wedding ring. Thus the name ``ring shawl,'' once used only as a traditional

dowry item in Tibet.

 

Trade of shahtoosh items has been illegal in the United States and in most

other countries since 1979, but it has been showing up recently in exclusive

shops around the world and in private sales, the conservationist groups claim.

 

``The protection of the Tibetan antelope is a worthy cause to which I have

recently dedicated myself,'' said Harlow, a former TV fashion show hostess.

She called for the use of pashmina, made from a nonendangered Tibetan mountain

goat, as a still fairly luxurious - about $300 for a typical shawl -

substitute. Her comments were quoted in a news release.

 

Unlike the antelope, the goats don't have to be killed to obtain the fiber,

said Kerry Green Zobor, a World Wildlife Fund spokeswoman.

 

``They're being killed at the rate of 20,000 a year,'' said Zobor in an

interview. With no more than 70,000 in the wild, they could become extinct in

a few years, she said.

 

The antelopes are slaughtered on the Tibetan plateau in China with their

hides taken to Kashmir, India, where the fiber is extracted and loomed into

shawls and scarfs that make their way to New Delhi and eventually to

clandestine markets in the world's richest cities.

 

Socialites and celebrities subpoenaed by the Newark grand jury in July

included supermodel Christie Brinkley, according to an article in the November

issue of Vanity Fair. The magazine report said they bought shahtoosh shawls at

a charity function in November 1994.

 

The Record of Hackensack, N.J., reported on Tuesday that fashion star Nan

Kempner, socialite Sandy Hill Pittman and more than 100 others also were

subpoenaed and many of them already have surrendered their shawls to the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.