SUPPOSE you took an endangered species and put in a plan to save it. But after five years, there is no sign of reversing the catastrophic decline in numbers.
Surely you would recognise the plan is not working and look for alternatives?
There has been a catastrophic decline in numbers of tigers in the wild, particularly in India. Only in China are numbers increasing and that is because they are being farmed. That’s right – reared in large cages.
But what did conservationists decide to do at the recent Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in The Hague? They decided to restrict the captive breeding programs in China without coming up with a solution to the problem of poaching in India.
China has perhaps 60 wild tigers left, Russia has maybe 400, and India has seen its population crash to about 2500.
Orthodox conservation plans based on protection have failed the tiger.
The answer may lie in tiger farming and removing the international ban on the sale of tiger parts. A coalition of groups led by the Indian economist Barun Mitra last week called on the international meeting in The Hague to lift the ban arguing, simply, that when trade is outlawed only outlaws trade.
Poaching is one of the biggest threats to the tiger’s survival. But poaching was once a problem for crocodile conservation too. Widespread crocodile farming and a CITES-sanctioned trade drove poachers out of the market. The same approach could be applied to tigers.
China has perhaps 5000 tigers in captive facilities (the US has closer to 10,000). Tigers aren’t all that complicated to breed. But tiger farming is unpalatable to many people – it seems unethical, cold blooded.
It isn’t clear what makes tigers special. Various wild animals are farmed or ranched, including crocodiles, emus, parrots and butterflies. And in terms of cruelty, having wild tigers killed by traps or inefficient poisons in India, far exceeds the fate of tigers in farms. It might be nicer to see tigers in the wild than on farms, but to make that happen we need to close down the black market.
The Chinese have got an excellent monitoring system for captive tigers. Every captive tiger has been micro-chipped and blood taken for DNA profiling. They can follow a chain-of-custody from farms to customers. The technology to prove tiger products are legally sourced is in place. Laundering poached tiger bone faces major hurdles.
Sanctions for trading or possessing tiger parts are harsh and can include the death penalty. Smugglers are being caught, but demand and the lure of the very high black market prices is keeping the trade alive.
The big market is tiger bone, used in traditional Chinese medicine for treating bone diseases. Tiger farms in China report visitors and their families begging for bones for treating serious arthritis. Whether we believe that tiger bone is effective or not is irrelevant – millions of Chinese consumers do, trusting in centuries-old medical tradition. Demand has not been curbed by Western NGO campaigns condemning the practice and the illegal supply of tiger bone has not been stopped by government bans. Wild tiger populations are paying the price.
Most black market tiger bone is actually fake. It is expensive for smugglers to procure tiger bone in India, smuggle it through Nepal, over the Himalayas, through Tibet and into China’s eastern regions. Shooting a local cow and passing its bones off as tiger is much easier. But this dependence on fakes does nothing to relieve the pressure on small wild tiger populations struggling to absorb losses from poaching. Last week the international community could have supported incentives for a range of commercial activities from eco-tourism, to breeding tigers and trade in body parts.
Barum Mitra believes the tiger can become economically viable and thereby survive in the wild – as well as continuing as a charismatic and culturally rich species.
An internationally sanctioned and regulated trade promised solutions to major threats facing tigers. It promises to create opportunities for habitat protection and the revival of the species.
Farming and trading have worked for other species. Last week in The Hague an opportunity for a new plan, a new approach to tiger conservation was lost. A growing tragedy for much of our wildlife is that we have become too timid to jettison ineffectual strategies when they don’t work.
Dr Brendan Moyle is a zoologist and senior lecturer at Massey University, New Zealand, and has a blog with great wildlife photographs:
http://my.opera.com/chthoniid/blog/
Republished today from the Courier Mail with permission from the author: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22153644-27197,00.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Sounds yukky but if that’s what it’s going to take I guess there’s no option. And philosophically that probably opens up the flood gates for all other traffic in species parts. And then doesn’t the same argument extend to running drugs too?
Surely the question is more or less, will it help reduce poaching and lead to other conservation gains.
Tigers have been listed on CITES since the early 70s, in 1993 China banned domestic use, and throughout this 30 year period numbers have declined. When the Indians get around to releasing their latest census figures on tigers (December), I’d be prepared for a shock. Numbers in the wild look like they’ll take another hit.
I’m not confident the current strategy has much chance of working.
Hi Brendan,
I checked out your blog, nice pics!
The question to farm animals or which animals are suited to keep in captivity depends much on which species we are talking about and individual animal as well.
Maybe tigers breed well in captivity , but are they happy???
I watched the telly the other day and it was about tigers in India. To my astonishment the narrator said that the tigers in this particular reserve were doing well.
People’s religion played a big part to keep the tigers alive and cherished but farmers were not too happy about tigers.
Contrary to lions which hunt in packs, tigers are solitary hunters, this might be an obstacle when releasing them back into the wild again???
Brendan,
I think your analysis is sound. That is not to say we should stop trying to protect tigers in the wild, understand their behaviors and what is really important to make conservation efforts effective. But people need to look at alternatives such as you suggest AND triple the effort to curtail trafficking of tiger parts. Innovative thinking is vital for the species long term survival.
Good on you…
I heard on a TV documentary that there are more tigers kept by private individuals in Texas than there are wild ones in India. Quite strange, if it’s true.
While it’s not pleasant to think of these beautiful animals being reared to be killed for the sake of superstitious nonsense, it’s preferable to having the wild tigers exterminated.
Of course, they’re only beautiful when they can’t actually eat you. If we had to live with them as nature intended, we would hate them.
” If we had to live with them as nature intended, we would hate them.” – Paul
Methinks that tigers are very shy of humans. They ” only” kill people if they are sick , injured or maybe very old .
Tralfamador, here we come.
So it goes.
Hi Ann
Thanks for the feedback on photos. My mood improves when I’m around wildlife :).
I think the honest answer re: captive tigers, is simply that the quality of care varies. Some are better than others. Under-stimulation is probably more a risk factor. There’s too much invested in these animals to skimp on food and medical treatment. These are things, that can be changed.
India looks like they’ll be out of tigers in most places, except for a few reserves that benefit from large size and effective enforcement. Was the programme discussing the Corbett Reserve?
One aspect of the problem in India is human population. There are a lot of people who live either in, or right up against, these reserves. And even if the tigers are protected, their prey-base quickly disappears. The Indians have generally been reluctant to vigorously remove people who live illegally on reserves.
I expect tigers will be a challenge to re-wild and reintroduce. The Chinese plan is to reintroduce the off-spring of tigers that are being rewilded in South Africa. Interestingly, China is going through the reverse demographic shock to India. Instead of rural and wilderness areas getting more crowded with people, China is losing rural populations at a high rate. Wilderness is coming back.
It may be pertinent to mention that the Chinese intend reintroducing the South Chinese sub-species. This sub-species is extinct in the wild. I think it’s worth making the attempt to see these tigers back in the wild.
Thanks Rick
That was part of the message I was trying to get across in China. Our best cases of effective deterrence of poaching, are built around a combination of enforcement, monitoring and trade.
I agree about the innovation. Most successful conservation programmes are always innovating- testing new ideas. The least successful tend to be when we lock-in the same strategy for decades. A bit like the Californian Condor.
It’s always been a bit of a red-flag to me, that we’ve been trying to make a strategy designed in the 1970s for tigers, still work.
The relationship between conservation and exploitation is often paradoxical; the greater the conservation imperative, the more lucrative the exploitation.
Licensed trading can provide the market with a more affordable supply and if it can satisfy demand, poaching should become economically unattractive.
Dismissing the economic driving force of the key threatening process as ‘superstitious nonsense’ is a mistake, in my opinion. Perhaps there is legitimate pharmacological relief from its ingestion. Glucosamine is commonly used for the treatment of osteoarthritis and is often sold in combination with chondroitin extracts of cow and pig, shark, fish and bird cartilage. Pain-relief is a compelling motive.
An innovative threat-abatement plan for wild tigers might supplement licensed trade with the encouragement to develop and market a CITES endorsed super synthetic tiger bone remedy.
” Perhaps there is legitimate pharmacological relief ..” – Neil
This might be the core issue here.
The tiger bones might contain some active anti -inflammatory substance that gives pain relief in arthritis.
If this can be proven scientifically in clinical studies , then it’s fully possible to identify the chemical compound and making it possible to synthetize the potent/active substance in question.
This synthetization would probably make the chemical subtstance even more potent.
” With tiger populations dwindling in recent years as a result of poaching, wildlife officials say hunters have increasingly set their sights on leopards, killing them for their skins as well as bones, claws and penises for use in traditional Asian medicines ”
Poaching threatens India’s leopards:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=850096fe-f46a-4dc1-8229-d270af3f6466&k=56421
Well, after reading this story , I want to ask Brendan what solution he has for the leopards. Do he want to farm these as well???
Actually, this leopard story makes me wonder again , if the tiger farming is a good idea.
The solution must be in my opinion to substitute the traditional Asian medicine with synthetic alternatives. We can’t farm/ hunt/ poach wildlife for medical reasons.
If we allow trade in tiger parts , this will only encourage trade in other wildlife body parts as well. We are in an evil circle…
I’m not sure that we actually know that poaching for leopards is on the rise, as loss of habitat and prey-base is also a factor at play. We have very little data to make inferences about poaching levels.
Let’s assume that leopard poaching is now on the rise anyway- it is certainly plausible.
This would emphasise that the current ban is a disaster. Not only has it failed to deter poaching of tigers, it has inflated poaching of other cat-species.
As leopard is being marketed by organised crime networks as an (inferior) substitute for tigers, a legal trade in tigers is (under standard caveats on montioring/enforcement) should benefit wild populations of tigers and leopards.
Demand for wildlife products is driven by incomes, age-profiles of consumers and cultural norms. Bans reduce supply, farms increase supply. Bans and farms tend to have minor effects on demand, and I’m afraid there is a tendency amongst too many conservatioinists to conflate demand and supply effects.
Legal and illegal sources are in competition with each other. Much like GM is not selling more cars in the US because Toyota is selling more cars. Poached crocodile leather is in many markets, practically non-existent despite tens of millions of skins being traded annually.
The hypothesis that our Chinese consumer would go to the black-market because of the presence of legal supply, struggles to account for why this occurs. Why, if you can get a legal product of known provenance, would you go to a black market to get a less effective product? Why would you risk 10+ years in prison and the seizure of all your assets- when there’s a legal product that does a better job for sale?
” Demand has not been curbed by Western NGO campaigns condemning the practice and the illegal supply of tiger bone has not been stopped by government bans. ”
Well, methinks in this case the Western NGOs campaigns to curb trade in tiger body parts and promoting synthetic alternatives have been as useless as anti whaling campaigns in whaling countries.
We mustn’t ask what NGOs have done , we should instead ask what the Gov’t has done to promote alternative drugs. As it seems they have not done much. On the contrary , it seems like high officials are promoting tradional medicine.
With this attitude it’s not surprising that wild tiger populations dwindle.
Ooops! Read : “…traditional medicine…”
Hi Neil
I’ve heard some Chinese biochemists speculate that tiger-bone may simply have some combination of amino-acids and bone-cellular structure that assists in treatment of bone disease. This seems to be species specific- leopard comes close but it’s not good enough. It’s plausible enough for me not to buy claims that tiger-bone doesn’t work. At least, I’m trying to keep an open-mind on this issue.
In pre-ban years, China was consuming some 2500-3000kg of bone per year. That’s equivalent to 250 tigers. With an older and richer population, I suspect they would consume more now. But there seems sufficient capacity to meet this demand from captive sources (and stockpiles) and could without much effort, expand supply. Numbers of tigers are being managed lower than capacity.
It would be interesting to know if there was a genuine pharmacological effect, that this could be synthesised, and also employed as a tool to pressure poachers.
In the meantime however, the point is to try to play the hand that’s been dealt to us. Wild tigers are in trouble, and no miraculous massive drop in demand seems likely to occur in time to alleviate poaching pressure.
The poaching of brush-footed trapdoor spiders (for pets) in North Queensland was driven by demand and its associated willingness to pay $400 per spider. Legislative amendment allowed for trading under license, so now the same species are bred and sold for $100 each. The lucrative incentive for poaching has been substantively reduced and I imagine the same would apply to tigers.
What a pity it comes to this.
Hi Paul
Yes, the US has a lot of captive-tigers- many of which are privately owned. As an interesting thought experiment, consider that if such tigers have a natural mortality rate of 5% (expected captive life-span is 20 years*), then the US also loses 500 tigers a year through natural mortality.
That’s equivalent to 5000-6000**kg of bone. That’s also double the Chinese consumption of bone in the pre-ban years.
But we can’t use this US source to pressure poachers given that trade is banned under CITES. We’ve really made reducing poaching a lot harder than it could be…
*Actual life-span in captivity averages 15-17 years, so I’m probably under-estimating natural deaths.
**Tigers have 10-12 kg of dry-weight bone.
With harvesting the aged population of say the US, there is also the problem of the culling of healthy stock for cash. There are some very good organisations, community and private,seeding out abuse so i still think the damage from this pales to the gain.The best place to farm is where the tiger is being poached.Once poachers encroach on legitimate community business they would be put out of action swiftly.Another problem is that the Russian tiger would be hybridised or would slowly replace the Indian because of size, so steps would be needed to be taken to ensure pure genetics. Instigating the use of aged tigers in the States until the farms were up and running, would be a way of immediately starting to kill off the poaching which is a big MUST DO.Perhaps the US stock could be packaged in the worst poaching region. This will pave the way for the farms markets and will -or can if played properly- produce widespread community caution and policing”poached is poor grade and dirty”.There is more goodness in a calcium pill with added phosporus and vitamin d than tigerbone.And that effect will show up and be appreciated more by those defficient.Try glucosamine and shark cartilage with the calcium.Calcium also supports the nervous system .My personal ploy would be to breed tigers in minature so more people could indulge in their sustainability.Must go,Cheetah’s off the toilet.Umgowa everybody.
With harvesting the aged population of say the US, there is also the problem of the culling of healthy stock for cash. There are some very good organisations, community and private,seeding out abuse so i still think the damage from this pales to the gain.The best place to farm is where the tiger is being poached.Once poachers encroach on legitimate community business they would be put out of action swiftly.Another problem is that the Russian tiger would be hybridised or would slowly replace the Indian because of size, so steps would be needed to be taken to ensure pure genetics. Instigating the use of aged tigers in the States until the farms were up and running, would be a way of immediately starting to kill off the poaching which is a big MUST DO.Perhaps the US stock could be packaged in the worst poaching region. This will pave the way for the farms markets and will -or can if played properly- produce widespread community caution and policing”poached is poor grade and dirty”.There is more goodness in a calcium pill with added phosporus and vitamin d than tigerbone.And that effect will show up and be appreciated more by those defficient.Try glucosamine and shark cartilage with the calcium.Calcium also supports the nervous system .My personal ploy would be to breed tigers in minature so more people could indulge in their sustainability.Must go,Cheetah’s off the toilet.Umgowa everybody.
Re captive tigers in China:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22171896-5006003,00.html
Are these tigers on tiger farms allowed to live out their days and when they die the bones are harvested, or are they killed at a premature age?
Thanks Libby, that was interesting,that’s why Tigers should be bred in minature.You stand a better chance with only half your bum bitten off.As a point of interest, did anyone see the photo of the siberian tiger that killed it’s keeper in Russia a few years ago? In cuddling photo’s ,the keepers head was only as big as the tigers muzzle and he was’nt a little man.The keeper made the fatal mistake of going in after a female had been introduced and George,i think his name was, took great offence at attention to his lady.It’s not always good to be accepted as “one of the flock” Human error.Why shoot the tiger in the china Zoo? Psychotic reaction.Surely Confucious would have something to say to that.India has a lot of resources,it’s disgusting that this situation exists.There have been a lot of deaths by tigers over there, perhaps half of the trouble is the instilled fear and retribution.That leans more to economics as a solution.Believe me,it’s killing me to have to side with the farming solution and opportunists will have to be beaten away, after or if, farming is taken up,that want to move in on the tigers land.But it is a sane solution to the horror and threat that faces tigers.
I’m not familiar with what Libby has asked,Anybody out there know? Knowing the commercial world and logistics the answer would probably be based on premium growth concerning economics and bone and skin size.Is’nt it horrible to be talking about that.And cage size would have to be considered too.It tears me to pieces.
If, the wild population could be microchipped so age could be determined,over population could be managed on the reserves.Big white hunters could and would pay exhorbitant amounts to hunt them ,under supervision and scrutiny of guides and park management.That way the older more dangerous tigers could be removed before they resort to “village snacks” to survive or have to live out their life stressed and starving.Bulk income from hunts, tourism and farming the wild stock which should promote more parks and reserves to be reclaimed and established in other areas.The parks would thrive.I like this one a lot better,and with video’s now and then we’d even get to see some big white hunter get his bum bitten off.Yes please!
Hi Jim- I think tigers present us with a ‘wicked problem’. There is no magic solution that will fix the conservation threats they face. Every approach will create some new risks. But the quest for the ‘feel good’ magic solution, guaranteed 100% effective, has hindered our efforts.
My goal is to see more tigers in the wild. That will require IMO, an aggressive combination of policies to reduce poaching. At the moment that poachers are completely on top of the situation. To not use ‘tools’- like bone from legal sources- may make a lot of people feel morally superior. But it means we’re going up against organised, savvy criminal networks with ‘one arm tied behind our backs’. They’re the ones reaping the economic benefits of the ban. They don’t want the ban lifted.
We haven’t controlled illegal drugs by bans alone. In most Western countries, there are more types of drugs available (product diversification) and typically at lower prices. At least with heroin or crack or P, you’ve got the public education angle that ‘drugs harm you’. With tiger bone, we’ve got a product that most consumers believe is good for you.
India spends $USD 89m a year on tiger conservation. China gives tiger-bone smugglers the death penalty. IMO, it’s time to get a bit more creative with our policy tools.
Currently there is no sanctioned trade or harvest in tiger-bone in China. I’m not so naive as to believe that _all_ farms with their financial pressure, are _always_ resisting the temptation to move the odd animal into the black market.
There has been assertions by the Chinese that only animals that have died naturally will be used for the legal market (if they resume). I’d be surprised that this would be economic. Keeping a tiger alive for a captive-span of 15-17 years starts to be really expensive. I don’t have any firm idea on numbers.
But I also don’t believe we are talking about keeping tigers in cages, like battery-hens. A large chunk of the revenue for these farms comes from tourists. And tourist prefer to see animals in more natural settings. The second factor is in order to get good bone development, the animal needs to exercise a lot. So, to produce bone of a desirable density and quality, these animals are going to have to room to roam.
I do have some pictures from the Guilin farm- (not the best around)- on my blog
http://my.opera.com/chthoniid/blog/show.dml/1092029
This may give you a better idea of the tiger’s lifestyle.
Hi Chthoniid,Aggressive policies don’t work or have to date, the world is being rorted of it’s spending and donations.That’ll be 89 million going to corruption, more is going to go down a big black hole. Look at the results to date.More money is just promoting official corruption and sinkhole beurocracies. Ten Or fifteen would set up the guided hunts for starters.The chinese will slowly educate themselves to tiger bone snake remedies. As soon as something is started like the hunts, the economics of poaching won’t add up and will die out along with the reserves being expanded and policed in earnest.If the farmhunts is taken up criminal elements in officialdom and blackmarket participaters across borders and countries will be cornered to compliance systematically ,mostly without confrontation,and will be facing officialdoms scrutiny.Which it obviously has’nt to date.Give the hunter a choice,He pays for the hunt and the cull,buy the skin or donate it to the cause and go home with a claw necklace.Bones automatically go to reduce the poaching and service the chinese with a clean and healthy pure stock of product.Can you imagine what else they are up to and how insidious these organised inter country gangs and cicles are? Cut them and the product off and gain in all quarters busting up social circles by constructive stealth is the safest for the world, not confrontation.The way things are at the moment, those US dollars are supporting and subsidising criminality and the genocide of parks and tigers.There needs to be an on direct onground solution that pays,grandstanding and executive descisions from ivory towers is going to see the end of the tiger in the wild.What is happening at the moment has little more than the air of extortion about it.The world is paying the money but nothing is being delivered.There is millions to be made on the ground solution as well as giving international crime official and otherwise a big smack in the chops without confrontation.
So Brendan are these animals killed prematurely (the one in farms now and planned for farms if things change)? Presumably so based on the economics of keeping one alive and the risk of bones starting to degenerate with age. Captive big cats are prone to many ailments in old age.
Farmed Tigers are reared on artificial feed, don’t get to roam about. They are not the same as the wild tigers and their healing benefits do not compare with the true wild tigers.
Once the trade in farmed tigers establishes it will be no time before they are worth diddly compared to the wild poached stock.
It would be like comparing the value of real diamonds, compared to manufactured.
If i could say something on that,All animals live longer and healthier lives in captivity, in the wild they live with horrible untreated injuries and hardship and deficiency’s.Domestic cats suffer in old age because they are looked after and reaching heights of age and of quality unheard of in the wild.If an older tiger has to humanely lose it’s life after years of quality to make way for another and to keep their species alive, we may have to suffer it to help kill the blackmarket, corruption, poaching and genocide.Tourist ventures,Managing,Hunting and farming the species onsite reserve has many benefits.The only way a wild tiger is “better” is because the way things are structured,the powers that be have made an industry out of the tigers downfall not it’s life enduring.There’s nothing to be gained at present by it’s living for purpose.
“All animals live longer and healthier lives in captivity”
Not true sorry Jungle Jim. There are some species that can’t be kept alive in captivity eg, colugos, and others that don’t do well in captivity. The standards of captive institutions varies hugely across the globe. I have seen animals in first class institutions die unnecessary deaths at an early age and ailments caused by a life in captivity that would not occur in the wild.
Hi Eumong-
Could you elaborate as to your qualifications in TCM? To date I’ve interviewed several TCM experts in China in several locations- on this subject- and none of them agree with you. There is a belief there will be some minor differences, but pharmacological effects would be comparable.
The only people I’ve heard make your claim before, have been the odd Indian tiger expert and advocates from several Animal Rights groups. Funny thing is, that none of them have any background in TCM.
Wild poached bone will be just as illegal with trade, as it is with a ban. The same penalties will still apply.
Point taken on that one Libby,I should’nt generalise to be brief.I was more refering to better known species like the general zoo populations and should have said so.There are many animals whose habits, nature and wild diets we are still to learn.While we have domesticated many species of finch for example,still others that have been kept and tended as long are a battle to keep in a healthy aviary population for their survival as they dissappear in the wild.You are most certainly right and this is critical info for the maintenance of reserves.
Who is going to pay $50 dollars, for discussions sake, and risk penalty in China of all places when you can buy it for 5 legally and pure from your local chemist or supermarket with your govts blessing, thanks and protection.A few fools may still poach but what they’d be up against protection wise and profit wise would be totally out of proportion to the risk.Only peasant status might be the main indulger’s as profits fell.The big boys and inter country circles would drop it as one of their indulgances like a hot cake because the interest in policing would intensify with full support from the top and bottom and social circles changes would make it to hot to indulge in.Who would’nt dob in the boss for a better paid job and to deal to him when his support has fell to pieces?
“”Our biggest problem is not from poachers but from the tribal bill,” Valmik Thapar, one of India’s leading tiger experts, told a news conference”
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/08/03/loss_of_habitat_threatens_indian_tiger/
Yes, the long term threat to tigers remains habitat loss, with longer terms threats to genetic fitness (many populations are too small) being quite palpable.
Poaching however, remains an immediate threat to many tiger populations. Deterring poaching will ‘buy time’ to tackle other threats. I can’t say yet whether that time will be exploited…
In some ways, I would not be surprised that in 25-50 years time, China becomes a more important range-state for wild tiger populations than India.