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| NYT: Tigers in a Chinese slaughterhouse |
Every tiger conservationist knows that the insatiable demand for tiger parts comes primarily from China. The demand is so great that it fuels an international trade in dead tigers and their body parts that will cause the extinction of the tiger through out its home range in the near future. For
five thousand years Chinese traditional practitioners have considered tigers to contain magical properties. A liquor made from tiger bone and rice alcohol can sell for as much as $136, and it is sold openly in Guangxi and beyond. Officially, products made with tiger parts are banned since 1993, but investigations by conservationists reveal that
the illegal trade is increasing. The International Fund For Animal Welfare concluded in its 2006 report that law enforcement to prevent the trade is sporadic and in some areas non-existent. A domestic supply of tiger parts stimulates the demand for wild tiger carcasses, since Chinese folk medicine tenants recommend wild ingredients as more potent. Tiger breeding farms are in operation in China that contain about 5,000 tigers, but none of these will be restored to the wild. In reality the captive breeding facilities little more than slaughter houses. The largest breeding operation is Xiongsen Tiger & Bear Mountain Village,
opened in 1993 with state participation [photo]. There, about 1500 tigers roam treeless fenced enclosures awaiting death. Until two years ago, the so-called park sold tiger steaks in its restaurant before bad publicity stopped the practice. Xiongsen's winery produces some 200,000 bottles of "rare animal bone" liquor a year. Despite participation of China in efforts to double wild tiger numbers by 2022, this inhuman and indefensible domestic trade in farmed tiger parts goes on unabated. President Obama should take up this matter with the Chinese president Hu Jintao, before he ends his official visit to the United States.
