This chiru is probably dead now, due to an illegal trade that keeps the rich in

HIGH on the isolated Tibetan plateau, Bill Bleisch found himself embroiled in a dramatic standoff with armed poachers. Three days' drive from the nearest settlement, the American biologist and 10 nature reserve staff were studying the fast disappearing Tibetan antelope.

There to observe pregnant antelopes gathering for their annual calving, they stumbled across the very reason the animal is endangered - two men 'literally redhanded', Dr Bleisch says, up to their wrists skinning animals they shot the previous night.

The hides were destined, in one illegal step after another, to be sold in Kashmir, and turned into that precious tai-tai commodity, shahtoosh shawls, woven from the 'king of wools'.

That was in June. The same month, British Vogue magazine's issue hit the coffee tables of the well-heeled in cities from London to Hong Kong, within its pages an article entitled 'Survival tactics' ('What do you need to get through the parties and holidays that fill the summer months?').

It carried a half-page photo of 'hostess' Lady Charlotte Fraser, draped sexily in only one item: a richly embroidered shahtoosh shawl. 'It works so well as a skirt,' she says in the article. 'I love to wrap shawls around my waist and wear them when I go out.' The effect of the article was stunning, but not in the desired way. 'I was appalled,' says Professor Wong How-man, founder of the Hong Kong-based China Exploration and Research Society that sponsors Dr Bleisch's work.

'It's so irresponsible. A magazine like that should set an example.' And Judy Mills, director of wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic East Asia, was not only disgusted but amazed: 'I was thinking, 'Hello? Where have you been?' There's been enough of a whisper about it that Vogue magazine should not be publishing it.' Vogue's communications director, Antonia Bailey, claims the whisper did not reach the magazine in time for the May deadline of that June issue. She at first remarked that news about shahtoosh and its grisly production had been all over the British newspapers, but, after conferring with the magazine's editors, said the coverage had been seen in only the past six weeks or so.

Trade in shahtoosh wool has been illegal worldwide for 20 years. Interest in the animals' plight has increased since the slaughter became documented in the 1990s.