BBC Two - Natural World - Risking life and limb on the hunt for the tiger traffickers

By Laura Warner, Director of ‘Tigers: Hunting the Traffickers’, BBC Two, 4th March at 9pm I first met former Royal Marines Commando Aldo Kane 10 years ago, abseiling into a volcano to film the world’s largest lava lake. A decade later and I’m crawling through a jungle with him, trying to secretly enter a tiger farm. Neither of us is quite sure whether we’re more worried about being caught by potentially armed tiger traffickers, or getting mauled by a tiger. I’ve never felt so exposed. Because it was an undercover investigation, we didn’t have the kind of back-up you would have on an operation in the Marines. We were faced with the real possibility of danger from criminal organisations; tiger farmers were shot on the street while we were investigating Aldo Kane It was inevitable that making a documentary investigating the illegal tiger trade would lead to some pretty sticky situations. So what on earth persuaded us to do it? With fewer than 4,000 tigers left in the jungles of Asia, we f...