By Tony Reid
Auckland Zoo goers were given a hard hitting message today when they went to check out the tigers.
Every Easter egg they eat could be pushing them toward extinction.
That is because the palm oil used in chocolate is sourced from areas where endangered species once thrived.
Six-year-old Oz, a Sumatran tiger, was enjoying his giant Easter egg today.
But if he knew what was in the real thing he may have stopped licking.
“By us going out every year and buying chocolates for Easter we are contributing to the destruction of these guys habitat,” says Peter Fraser, Conservation Officer for the Auckland Zoo.
Indonesian rainforests are being stripped so rapidly by illegal logging and palm oil plantations that Sumatran tigers face extinction.
Auckland Zoo is doing its bit to educate people on which companies use palm oil in their chocolate.
“Four hundred animals of those left alive in the wild, we don't know if they are going to survive, they are on the knife edge,” he says.
By telling parents and their children that they are potential tiger killers it is hoped they will make them buy ethically when they hit the supermarket shelves.
If only it were that easy.
Neither Cadbury or any other chocolate companies have to state whether their products contain palm oil.
Cadbury was one of the many companies Auckland Zoo wrote to. It and others responded with a list of palm oil free products.
“Chocolate that doesn't have palm oil will have this nice rich creamy texture, it melts on your palet, where as the items that do have palm oil in them you sort of have this residual fatty taste in your mouth,” says chocolate retailer Caroline Everitt.
Since there is nothing on the box, Auckland Zoo has compiled a palm oil free list of its own.
It is a small but important step to protecting this magnificent animal.
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