There is a big international meeting (the 55th meeting of the Standing Committee to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES) currently underway in The Hauge, Netherlands, and China is hoping for support, in particular from India, for an amendment to the 14-year-old ban on trading in tiger parts.
That’s right, China and others want to legalize trade in bits of dead tiger.
Its been Indian policy that the tiger can be best protected through traditional conservation while China and others want to explore market-based tools including incentives for insitu conservation and also captive breeding.
Its a contentious but important issue, particularly given so far the Indian tiger populion has about halved over the last 5 years. There are many more tigers in captivity in China than in the wild in India.
You can read more at Brendan Moyles blog: http://my.opera.com/chthoniid/blog/2007/06/05/china-tiger-and-cites
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Farmed tigers are as bad as poached ones. What is needed is education of the Chinese public to not use archaic traditional medicine containing tiger parts, be it bones, teeth, genitalia, skin, eyeballs , claws etc.
What is need as well is monitoring of nature reserves in India by UN staff or similar.
It is as well cruel to keep such an animal as a
tiger kept in captivity.
The Chinese are cruel when it comes to trade in wild animal parts , thinking as well on the bear bile farms.
If allowing trade in farmed tiger parts this will fuel poaching as well…
Hope CITES will ban such a move…
Ann, Do you want trade in farmed tiger parts banned because it is “bad” or because you believe it will help wild populations of tigers?
Hi jennifer,
Methinks banning of all trade in tiger parts will help the wild population…. allowing and encouraging traditional Chinese medicine will only preserve existing attitudes that the tiger parts posesses miraculous properties, people think they will get the strenght etc from the tiger that they consume.
I read Chtoniid’s comment as well…very interesting that the tiger part customers have been cheated with are cow -parts…only shows that this nonsense with ” strenght from tigers” is a myth.
It might be possible that some parts of the tigers do have some positive properties on health etc. but the tiger parts can in that way be easily synthetisized.
Western NGOs have been trying to convince the Chinese that tiger-bone is not effective for several years. The problem is that most Chinese continue to trust their centuries old traditions of Chinese medicine, rather than listen to whiney-westerners.
There is a basic credibility problem especially as the TCM doctors will point to the studies they have done proving the efficiacy of tiger-bone.
Having had the advantage of visiting several tiger-farms in China, I would say that quality of care varies but they are not generally cruel. Standard of care could be improved in many cases.
The chief use of tigers in China is as a cure for bone-diseases. With an aging population, who believes that tiger-bone is effective, the situation is not going to change. Forget the ‘strength’ or ‘virility’ myths, tiger-bone is in demand as a cure for athritis.
I’m afraid that enforcement is simply insufficient to control poaching, even if undertaken by the UN. Poaching in Kenya increased after the CITES ivory ban, and even the escalation of the ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy has not worked. Everything is subject to diminsihing returns.
In terms of black-market economics 101, the ban at the moment is fuelling poaching. Prices are higher, competition has been eliminated, and the best the ban can hope for is that poachers consciences are pricked (somehow, our poacher learns that poeple in the West disapprove of his actions, and forswearing the life of crime- passing up on the higher pirces they now get- the poacher becomes a model citizen). I’m not holding out much hope for that.
The fact that so much of the tiger-bone in the blck-market is fake, actually gives the Chinese a much better chance at driving out the poachers.
Just a note more on the CITES side of things, note that CITES has no authority on the domestic trade in a country. Currently CITES does ban the interational trade in tiger products.
There is no legal obstacle to China resuming their domestic trade in tiger-bone if they wanted to. (And many people in China do want them to).
All that a CITES downlisting would do, would be to create the option for other countries to send tiger-bone to China (under a CITES permitting system). These bone-stocks could come from those animals that have died of natural causes.
There is an interesting short piece in the lastest New Scientist about endangered species and the rise in illegal hunting of them once they are given protection. Such protective measures can be a certain death sentence.
The NGOs state this :
” Reopening even limited legal trade in tiger products from farms would reignite a demand for wild tiger products. It also would give international crime syndicates an easy avenue for “laundering” illegally killed wild tigers from India, Russia and other countries, making law enforcement nearly impossible.
In essence, legal trade in tiger products from China’s tiger farms would spark an open season on tigers in the wild. ”
So once again we are in the position who to believe in.
Re ivory trade and poaching. The NGOs say that every time there is ongoing talk to lax the rules, poaching increases…
If it’s only about bone diseases there might be hope to enlighten the public if there is a political will from the authorities, but I personally doubt that the Chinese will abandon their traditional medicine , it is executed in med schools together with the ” western version”.
However, there is a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry working on bone diseases , so why must tigers be sacrified for this reason???
Methinks as well that the NGOs have failed in Asia and Africa because it’s more difficult to ruin the markets in those countries as people are not yet so ” enlightened ” on wildlife issues. And they are as well poor…
” There are many more tigers in captivity in China than in the wild in India. ” – Chtoniid
Are there not even mote privately owned tigers in the US, about 10 000 compared to 5000 in the wild?
I don’t believe the NGOs re: legal markets stimulating demand for poached products. This absurdity is trotted out on a regular basis, and has little basis in reality. I’ve looked at a number of wildlife markets and these assertions don’t stack up (in any coherent economic level).
People are not more inclined to buy illegal products when legal products become available. What is really being argued that laundering is possible in legal trade.
Nonetheless, laundering is not an inevitable outcome of legal wildlife markets. Laundering can be seriously hindered by good monitoring, credible law-enforcement activity and ‘crowded out’ by the legal products. In China’s case, they have the advantage of a 14 year period to catalogue and DNA type every tiger in captivity.
I think it is also worth pointing out two other factors. First, if you said lets embark on a conservation strategy that would see a catastrophic decline in tiger numbers in the wild, you can’t expect a lot of people to be convinced to continue it. This is what the status quo is offering.
Second, this is about conserving tigers in the wild- the satisfaction of Chinese TCM demand is a side-effect of this goal. I don’t like tiger-farms all that much, but what I like isn’t going to change the poaching issue. The issue is do we really want to stop poachers using often cruel, barbaric and lingering methods to kill tigers in the wild? If you want to end that, then we certainly have to be considering tiger-farms as a tool to achieve that.
We don’t have time- aptly illustrated by the current declines in the wild- to wait for demand to decrease. There are approximately 25m Chinese with bone-diseases that TCM doctors assert would benefit from tiger-bone treatment.
Chthonic regards
B
“Re ivory trade and poaching. The NGOs say that every time there is ongoing talk to lax the rules, poaching increases…”
I think you are being a little gullible here. Every time CITES meets, there is a rash of elephant proposals and a sudden rush of publicity on how poaching is on the rise all- of a sudden (given how little data is actually collected on poaching its pretty much anecdotal stuff).
Poaching is on the rise for ivory simply because the NGOs have prevented Asian stockpiles from being replenished. Despite the ‘one-off’ export approved in 1999, legal stockpiles are pretty much at an end. Japan started the ban-years with a stockpile sufficent to meet 10 years demand for hankos. Ivory was priced at US100-200 per kg.
Now that stocks are basically wiped out, ivory has hit US750 per kg. Poachers are laughing all the way to the bank every-time Kenya, the US and various NGOs rail against replenishing these stocks.
If the plan is to sustain these black-markets, the anti-ivory trade bloc has succeeded admirably.
Chthonic regards
B
On a slightly different note, well tangent, the first captive-born and released giant panda in China has died. It appears he fell out of a tree. Nothing to do with not preparing him adequately for release (as in tree-climbing skills) but rather that he was a male released into a wild that has other territorial males. The issue of releasing captive-born animals into a shrinking wild brings up many more avenues to explore (however they are dark and dingy and prone to unsavoury types).
So, is being a giant panda in China better than being a tiger?!
I read today that the Copenhagen Zoo euthanised two tiger cubs ” because there ain’t space for them in the zoo, and the other zoos globally have an abundance of tigers as well”.
Brendan. IMO, the best way to curb Chinese trade in endangered wildlife , is still better law enforcement and protection measures.
China is home to global trade in wildlife mainly due to their demand for traditional medicine. It’s not wise IMO to support medicine in enadangered animals. They could stick to herbs.
Re rhino horns that are an after sought product in China as well, Swaziland and Namibia have cracked down on poaching and shot down illicit trade routes to China and Asia and rhino populations overall in Africa are rising, according to a Traffic statement in CITES.
” So, is being a giant panda in China better than being a tiger?!” -Travis.
I dunno if I understand your point correctly, but wasn’t the panda released into a big nature park??
Re the tiger cubs in Denmark that were euthanised, it was asked if they couldn’t be released into the wild.
One answer was there were no safe , protected areas for the tigers…there are as well questions about survival in the wild of captivity bred animals…
Some species loose many of their ” instincts” after some generations in captivity breeding programs…
I know for example storks that loose their migration instinct after being bred in captivity…
Ann,
My comment is in regards to both species having limited survival chances in-situ, and instead surviving ex-situ in captive institutions. The panda was released into a large reserve in the hope that a ‘re-introduction’ program could be established, but it failed, at the expense of the panda and the program.
There was apparently a similar case in India where (a colleague writes) a captive-bred male Bengal tiger was ‘placed (well meaningly) in situ. In this polygynous and highly territorial species, the resultant territorial disputes were ferocious. Sadly, it is believed that the introduced male never reproduced. Even worse, reproduction was suspended for (from memory) two years while the resident males reestablished their territorial dominance.’
As you point out, captive breeding can actually breed out survival prospects for coping with the big wide world. Reintroduction of captive bred animals can also have impacts on the in-situ populations with undetected disease and poor genetics, as well as what you and I have mentioned here.
As far as I am concerned, Copenhagen has failed in its animal management if they let the tigers breed knowing that the only option for the offspring is euthanasia. Most large and reputable zoos have species management plans which are tied in with plans of other institutions around the world. It is a science in itself, and should be where zoos are at in this day and age.
We seem to be jumping aorund a few issues here, some a few comments.
One aspect I find interesting with China, is that the rural areas are losing people (urban migration) and this is opening up sites for ecological restoration.
If we want to see South China tigers back in the wild (and I do) then reintroductions will be necessary- but territorial conflicts is probably not going to be the initial hinderance. At the moment, the Chinese and South Africans are trying rewilding of tigers. So, I don’t believe that tigers will be released into restored areas (in China) until they have acquired the necessary survival skills. I would also expect such tigers to be from the purified lines, and not one of the many inexcerable hybrids.
Genetic issues are attendant to any conservation strategy also. Many reserves in Asia have far too few tigers left to sustain genetic diversity. Genetics is a problem to be rrecognised and managed- it is not an insurmountable obstacle to successful ecological restoration work.
My points are simply to highlight how we are only now learning the intricacies of what is involved with an individual species when captive breeding for reintroduction. Many problems are unforseen. We still have a lot to learn, and for some animals, perhaps it is better to manage them in-situ in ‘cordoned off’ areas than taking them totally off-site. An example here would have been the baiji river dolphin.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1943485.htm
Aah Travis
I prefer whisky (neat) personally as a general cure-all and aid for ‘whatever ails me’. It’s helped me through many an expedition overseas.
The abc link also perhaps, hints at the difficulty of being a vegetarian in China…
It reminds me of the nursery rhyme ‘there was an old woman who swallowed a fly’, only I guess in China it can end with them swallowing a tiger.
Hi Ann
a couple more points. In terms of rhinos, I note that the black rhino population was 60,000 in 1960, had fallen to 3,500 by 1988- and this in mostly Southern African countries that allowed use. It’s nice that rhino numbers are increasing, but they’re not exactly the poster-species for the efficacy of bans.
There are only a few species for which we have a demonstrated success at restoring abundance *and* driving out the poachers. These include the saltwater crocodile in Australia and Papua New Guinea, and the American alligator. And the key element here was the resumption of legalised trade. Yes, you have to have good monitoring, you have to have good enforcement measures. But if you really want the poachers out, you then need to pressure their profits and that’s why trade worked for the crocodilians.
The Chinese have micro-chipped every tiger they have. They have invested in forensic facilities that can identify exactly where a tiger-part came from. They have harsh penalties for tiger-smugglers. Tigers receive the highest legal protection possible- you’re flirting with the death penalty if you trade or possess tiger parts.
So what more they should be doing to improve monitoring and enforcement?