Save That Tiger (Not That Yak)

OUTFITTED in all that panoply of royal tradition, Queen Elizabeth's elite regiments have one natural enemy: the conservationist. On the head of every member of the Foot Guards, for example, rises half a Canadian bearskin; from the helmet of the Household Cavalryman sprouts a plume of yak hairs. Whenever the army's 88 military bands wheel into action, the soldiers who carry the big bass drums drape themselves in the skins of leopards and tigers.

Now the World Wildlife Fund, which lists tigers and leopards among some 800 species threatened with extinction, has weighed in with a formal letter of protest to the Defense Ministry. The fund did not mention the yak-hair plumes or the bearskins, said a spokesman, because "yaks are domestic animals. And although we don't much like the idea of bears being killed to make furry hats, our criterion for protest is whether the animal is in danger of extinction, and bears aren't technically in such danger. Besides, when an experiment with nylon bearskins was tried a few years ago, they proved most unsuitable for wear in the rain. [They got frizzy.] But leopards and tigers are disappearing fast. There are only a few thousand of each left."

Though drum carriers have been wearing furs ever since the mid-18th century, the ministry nonetheless agreed last week not to buy any more skins. What happens when the present supply runs low? Well, there is a company near London that makes synthetic skins for $40 (v. $300 for a good leopard skin and $550 for a tiger), but the bandsmen may not have to stoop to that just yet. "There must be thousands of skins from the old raj days being used as rugs or knocking around in attics," said Colonel Rodney Bashford, director of the Royal Military School of Music. "We hope that their owners will leave them to their old regiments when they die." Of course, Bashford added, "we are bound by tradition to use only leopard or tiger skin. Last year someone sent us a panther skin. Very kind of them, but no use to us at all."

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