“The Sustainable Development Network (SDN), a coalition of people-oriented conservation groups, today called upon delegates to the CITES meeting in The Hague to reconsider the ban on sale of tiger parts, which it says is undermining effective conservation by reducing the incentives to manage tigers sustainably and increasing the number of wild tigers that are poached. The SDN argues that trade in certified farmed tiger parts could meet existing and future demand, thereby reducing pressure on wild tigers.
“The conservation community has for many years been split over whether commerce in endangered species is desirable. While the evidence has increasingly suggested that commerce must be part of the solution, opponents of commerce have dominated the debate. As a result, restrictions on commerce have become the cornerstone of conservation policies, with the consequence that tigers and several other species have been driven to the verge of extinction in the wild.
“One fundamental problem is that by making trade in these wildlife products illegal, the trade has been driven underground. As Kirsten Conrad, a tiger conservation expert, notes, “Despite legal protection over most of its range, prohibition of international trade, anti-poaching efforts, and millions spent by NGOs and governments, demand for tiger parts shows no sign of abating.”
“Recent estimates put the value of illegal trade in wildlife at over US $6 billion a year – which would make it the third most traded illicit product after drugs and arms. Indian policy analyst and developer of SDN’s Sustainable Tiger Initiative, Barun Mitra, puts it succinctly: “When trade is outlawed, only outlaws trade.”
“Some of the poorest people in the world live in close proximity to tigers and other valuable resources, yet they have little incentive to conserve and manage those resources sustainably, because they are not allowed to own or trade in them. As a result, only criminals and smugglers profit from poaching. This is bad for the people who share the tiger’s habitat and very bad for tigers.
“The contrast with crocodiles – another large carnivore – could not be more stark. Three million crocodiles are farmed each year in facilities as disparate levitra as Australia, South Africa and the United States – enabling the demand for crocodile parts to be met legally, while massively reducing the pressure on wild crocs. In 1971, all of the world’s 23 species of crocodile were classified as endangered; now, the eight farmed species are no longer threatened and populations of eight other species have recovered.
“As Mr Mitra, whose Liberty Institute was a founding member of the SDN, puts it “The only market failure in tiger conservation is the failure to let markets operate.”
“In the new proposal – the “Save the Tiger Initiative” – the SDN outlines ways of enabling people to own and sell tigers, which would provide incentives for a range of commercial activities, from eco-tourism to breeding tigers and trading in tiger parts. Under this proposal, the SDN believes that the tiger, which is such a charismatic and culturally rich species, can become economically viable and thereby survive in the wild.
“Kirsten Conrad explains why she supports the SDN Initiative: “While all this sounds cold-blooded—tigers are not tubs of margarine nor domestic livestock— conservationists do not have the luxury of ignoring the distasteful but possibly effective strategy of allowing trade in captive-bred tigers, at least not if they are truly intent on saving the tiger from extinction.”
Barun Mitra concluded, “The tiger could easily earn its keep and buy its way out of extinction – if we allow it to do so,” adding that cooperation between China and India offers the best hope for this mighty but endangered beast.
“NOTE: The 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is currently taking place in The Hague (3-15 June 2007). Asian big cats are on the agenda under “Species trade and conservation issues” but some countries want the topic dropped.
“The Sustainable Development Network is a coalition of individuals and non-governmental organizations who believe in a people-oriented view of sustainable development.
www.sdnetwork.net
End of Media Release.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Humans saved bovines from extinction through domestication, so why not tigers?
There’s also mink farms, with the result that there’s lots more minks alive then there otherwise would be.
People stuck on the notion of “it ain’t hardly natcherul” will have a problem, but talking to them is like trying to convert a Taliban to Baha’i. Waste of time, and your place of business could get bombed by someone who thinks they are ‘well-meaning and sincere’.
>Humans saved bovines from extinction through domestication
Yeah, that’s why there are no aurochs around today.
It’s tragic that we now have come so far that we have to discuss keeping wildlife in farms and zoos as we have destroyed their habitats and decreasing numbers due to poaching.
Hey, the tigers belong in the djungel and not on some farms or in a cage….yeah, it’s sound so politically correct to talk about conservation, but what about animal welfare???
The talk to keep tigers on farms and using the body parts , will as well fuel bear bile farms, that must be one of the most cruel ways to keep animals…
The bears are kept in small cages, so small that they even can’t stand erect, and the bile milking is the most cruel and agonising procedure for the bears….disgusting!!!
The only way to coming to terms to end this woodoo science to use animal parts in traditional medicine must be to promote synthetic alternatives. As it is now Chinese authorities are honey talking about the animal body parts positive impacts on human health…VOODOO!! And then some people wonder why it is so hard to come to terms with poaching…
India for ban on trade tigers’ body parts to continue:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/India_for_ban_on_trade_tigers_body_parts_to_continue/articleshow/2115191.cms
China may revive trade in rare tiger parts( this is a good article) :
http://article.wn.com/view/2007/06/08/China_may_revive_trade_in_rare_tiger_parts/
It might be relevant to point out that I’m a vegetarian (for animal welfare reasons)- and so is Kirsten Conrad. I don’t think the parallel between bear farms and tiger farms holds particularly well. I don’t have any major welfare concerns.
The goal is to sustain tiger populations in the wild. Given that some 2500 Indian tigers won’t go very far to sate the (possible) demand of 25m Chinese with severe bone diseases, I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting for demand for TCM to drop. And given the complete failure of Western NGOs to affect this demand in China, this is not just a strategy that appears to have no immediate chance of success, it has been failing in a spectacular fashion. Catastrophic declines in wild tiger populations aren’t compelling evidence that ‘protection’ is working.
Hi Brendan,
I applaud you for being vegetarian!
Re your comment that the NGOs have failed to promote synthetic drugs in China.
I think it is very difficult for NGOs to work in a totalitarian communist nation…
BTW, as the ivory trade is in a way connected to tiger farming , I found this interesting link :
Will legalising the ivory trade put elephants at risk from poaching?:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6735783.stm
“Humans saved bovines from extinction through domestication, so why not tigers?”
The domesticated animals we have today bear very little resemblance to their wild ancestors. Domesticate the Tiger, but don’t expect it to be anything like what the wild ones are in a few centuries. The simple fact of the matter is, man cannot just leave a few remnants of the wild alone, everything must in the end serve his needs.
Excuse me, but how much can we trust the Chinese doctors and traditional chinese medicine?
From the above link: “…tiger brain cures laziness …” Geeeee……
” Catastrophic declines in wild tiger populations aren’t compelling evidence that ‘protection’ is working.”
Why the ” protection” has not always worked in reserves etc. might have to do with park rangers and farmers salaries.
I think it might be ” easy” to bribe park rangers, as their salaries are very low and if they are not driven by real passion they can be bribed by poachers.
A tiger skeleton is worth maybe 10 years salaries, so it might be tempting to kill a tiger…
One solution might be that ” rich Western NGOs” are paying the park rangers salaries and that the salaries must be high and if catching poachers they must be given extra bonus etc.
They would want high salaries. Seven rangers were killed in Africa last month.
Education is always a good method of change. Education on the real/perceived health benefits of traditional and western medicines, the benefits of wild and healthy populations of predators and prey, on alternatives to a way of life that does not result in seeing in-situ extinction of large mammals and ex-situ domestication of them, that Man is not the pinnacle of existence and relies on an intricate construction of other life forms for physical and cultural existence, that the world is really a very small place.
Then agan, Man taketh away and Man giveth. Wipe out the tiger and in a few years we can genetically engineer them into existence again. It worked with the auroch, thylacine and quagga (not).
The omniscent one has spoken.
“I think it is very difficult for NGOs to work in a totalitarian communist nation…”
Yet with the tigers, we have an instance of a free-market economist (Barun Mitra) working there. China is an interesting place.
I think the chief difficulties the Western NGOs have had are simply they have started with the _prior_ conviction that TCM is ineffectual and misrepresent the uses of tiger-products by the Chinese. This is perpetuated in the links you have provided.
I think its fairly obvious that if you are going to make policy pronouncements before listening to, or establishing some level of respect with the Chinese, odds of influencing policy is going to be seriously handicapped.
Hopefully the matter of respect gets more attention where it counts than in places where it counts for less.
I’m optimistic!
(and whoops, I spelt omniscient wrong…)
“The domesticated animals we have today bear very little resemblance to their wild ancestors. ”
It’s perhaps worth noting, that the goal here is to preserve wild tigers in their current environment- and the ambition is reintroduce them back into parts of their range they have being extirpated from.
A precondition for this is reducing poaching to ‘non-threatening’ levels. Trade is a potential tool for this, and it is frustrating to have this option blocked simply because it doesn’t deliver the requisite ‘warm-glow’ to a number of NGOs.
“Education is always a good method of change.”
Possibly, but despite the known health problems associated with say, illicit drugs, we haven’t fixed this particular problem with education.
Given that we are losing- in net terms- several hundred tigers in the wild per year, and the rate at which anti-consumption campaigns are affecting demand in China- tigers are going to be extinct long before education will impact on their survival.
>The omniscent one has spoken.
And you consider that comment necessary David? Practice what you so arrogantly preach to others.
What makes you think I was talking to you Travis? Sheez, talk about arrogance.
An Indian tiger conservationist said that without the ban on tiger trade there wouldn’t even exist the very few tigers left in India…
Re the reintroduction into the wild of tigers, aren’t the captured tiger’s gene pool very poor???
Hi
There was a case for introducing a ban in 1993, so I would not completely disagree with said Indian conservationist. The problem has been that many Indian tiger conservationists are venturing well outside their expertise when they discuss the (current) Chinese black market. The big threats to tigers in India remain habitat loss and local poaching. Nobody has quite provided a satisfactory explanation of why poaching would be spurred by the legal market reopening in China. That is, an argument based on a bit of evidence and some coherent economic logic…
I did briefly discuss genetics on my blog- most of the Chinese captive population is yes, too genetically hybridised to be used for reintroductions. Nonetheless, there has been a lot more work by the Chinese in Harbin and in Shanghai at resurrecting sub-species over several generations. So there is a pool of animals that will be suited to reintroductions. They are of course, in the minority of the total captive population. But still, a growing, valuable genetic resource.
Chthonic regards
B
>What makes you think I was talking to you Travis? Sheez, talk about arrogance.
So who were you talking about then David – Ann, Schiller, SJT or Brendan? Let us hope honesty is one of your strong points.
What is particularly exciting about China, is that it was (historically) part of the range of 4 sub-species of tigers. These include the Siberian (Amur), South Chinese, Indo-Chinese and Bengali.
To be contemplating creating reserves for, and reintroducing these animals, is a major turn for the ‘good’.
BTW David, I did not necessarily think you were ‘talking to me’. Rather I found it hypocritical that you should make what was obviously intended as a deragotory comment when on a previous thread you criticised others for doing the same.
(Apologies for detracting from the tiger theme).
>To be contemplating creating reserves for, and reintroducing these animals, is a major turn for the ‘good’.
One assumes these reserves can in turn be good for other species like the Amur leopard.
lol, quite astute Travis, indeed I was talking to you (!), and to be honest few others could boast of a “Practice what you so arrogantly preach” as priceless as yours.
As someone with at least a bit of humility I readily confess that my contribution above was not necessary, but I’m still keen to keep plugging away at my “humility in others” development project 🙂
Chthoniid, indeed, sounds like a positive move to me. I’ve only heard anecdotal stuff from some Indian people I know but the impression I get from them is that tigers are generally viewed as a pest in India. Hopefully that will change with time.
Well, I’m not sure what the point of it all was David, as I have been accused numerous times by yourself of wasting time, wanting a fight, arguing with myself etc. I am reminded of George’s kitchenware.
Humility…hmmm…perhaps we can both practice some humility towards each other and in ourselves and see where that gets us (note you have caught me in a good mood!).
Hey you can say what you like to me Travis (like wishing me dead etc), I’m more interested in how “others” are treated.
>I’m more interested in how “others” are treated.
Then I look forward to your future comments about “others”, and expect more of the same comments about me.
whooooosh…
” I am reminded of George’s kitchenware. ”
Double Whoooooooooooosh…..
Well at least the little boy in the school yard is no longer playing by himself.
Apologies again to the tiger thread.
Out of the festering quagmire and back on topic …
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20070614115637&irec=1
Somehow I think this article may be lining the slow loris cages in the Pramuka market.
China has not succesfully introduced farmed tigers to the wild.
John Sellar, CITES senior enforcement officer, was sceptical after visiting a breeding center in China this year.
” The potential for any of those tigers to be used for conservation purposes seems to be very limited, if existent at all”, he said.
http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L13883350
Thanks for a contribution here Travis, certainly one of your best.
(From TRAFFIC)
“A legal market in China for products made from farmed tigers would increase demand and allow criminals to launder products made from tigers poached from the wild”
Having a legal market would allow criminals to launder products derived from poaching?
So, TRAFFIC’s definition of a “legal market” equates to an “unregulated market”?
But isn’t it black markets that are unregulated, i.e., what they have right now?
Chthoniid, Travis, any info on how China was proposing to regulate it’s market? (I assume they would have proposed establishing some kind of regulatory measures, or I am I putting too much faith in them?)
(From TRAFFIC)
“Tiger numbers in the wild are so precarious that we cannot risk any actions that could jeopardize them further.”
Well then, fingers crossed that continued ideological inaction will suddenly start to bear positive results now that it has been reaffirmed.
The Chinese are considering a number of options for selling tiger products. The prior-system (pre-1993) was subject to no monitoring, and I don’t believe this is not actually favoured.
One option would be to make tiger-medicine only available through the TCM medical system. The monitoring system for other wildlife products is also quite sophisticated. The SFA issues a unique bar-code, which must be on each product sold. Inspectors can text (SMS) this code into a central database, and get information on when and where the product was manufactured. Naturally, fake products are easily detected. Only some retailers are also permitted to sell these TCM/wildlife products. They have trialled many of these mechanisms with musk-oil, and apparently the laundering problems here (even though the safe-guards are less than tiger ie no DNA profiling) have been eliminated.
So I imagine there will be a limited number of places where tiger-bone products could be purchased, and there are additional safe-guards built in now with the microchipping and DNA profiling of the captive tiger population.
Given the average Chinese consumer would then have the option of buying a legal product of known quality, versus going to to black market and getting (most likely) cow bone, and flirt with the death penalty, I don’t see that the legal market is going to have much stimulatory effect. Personally I would prefer to get the product I know is actually what I want, and avoid the whole prison-and-death risk thing.
“China has not succesfully introduced farmed tigers to the wild.”
I think it may be more pertinent that they haven’t even attempted it yet. So, lack of success here, is more in line with they are trying to maximise the odds of success by waiting until conditions are optimal. We have South African cat-experts trying to rewild Chinese tigers deliberately selected on the basis of age and genetics for reintroduction. I think it’s worth giving it a try, albeit I appreciate it is going to be difficult.
“John Sellar, CITES senior enforcement officer, was sceptical after visiting a breeding center in China this year.
” The potential for any of those tigers to be used for conservation purposes seems to be very limited, if existent at all”, he said.”
There are 5000 tigers in different captive facilities, and John Sellar is able to make this judgement on the basis of one visit to one facility…hmm.
I note that a number of foreign experts have at times, pronounced that it was impossible to do many varied management strategies with wildlife.
Apparently it was impossible to clear largish islands of introduced rats, but we have anyway. Apparently crcodilians couldn’t be farmed or ranched, as they were large carnivores requireing special pens, and took 25-30 years to reach breeding age. Apparently legal trade would wipe out crocodilians because the natural population grew too slowly, it was much cheaper to poach them in the wild, it was so easy to launder them blah, blah, blah. Oh, and legal trade would stimulate poaching. Apparently the Black Robin’s population- when it was 9 birds and only 2 were female- couldn’t be saved, would be too genetically homogenous- no population below 50 individuals could be saved- but we ignored that advice and did it anyway. Captive-breeding of Californian Condor would spell the end for the species etc…
I’ve been a zoologist now for almost 20 years (if we start from my first journal publications) and my general observation, is that most of our most significant conservation successes, have come when we’ve thrown away the rule-book and tried out new ideas that many of the so-called experts said wouldn’t work…
So Brendan, how do they kill farmed tigers in China?
Are they electrocuted, sticking devices into their genitalia and rectum and burning them to death??? Disgusting, the more I think about the the tiger farms , the more disgusted I am….
Ann- where do you get this information from?
Given that there has been no legal trade in tiger-parts since 1993, there are no authorised ‘harvest’ of tigers for almost 14 years.
The original intention was to use bones that are being stockpiled from natural mortality. Captive tigers have a longer life-span than their wild counterparts. But they don’t live for ever. The bodies are basically in storage (which I’ve seen in two major facilities). There is also quite a lot of tiger-bone stored in TCM hospitals. At this stage they haven’t been considering harvest methods.
My direct observation of tiger-handling, is that they have an effective anaesthetic developed in collaboration with veterinary universities in China (cf the microchipping photo I have on my blog). Tigers are handled with a great deal of care. The facility at Harbin is the exemplar- they have a dedicated birthing room for tigers in trouble, and incubators for premature tiger cubs.
I’m not thrilled at the idea of farming tigers, but at an objective level, the immediate and urgent task is deterring poaching to tolerable levels.
Thanks for the info on trade monitoring, chthoniid.
Death penalty sounds pretty tough, but I suppose we are talking China.
In Japan with regard to unregistered whale products 6 month prison sentences and fines of 300,000 yen can be imposed on anyone in possession of such items (and illegal harvesting may lead to 2 years in prison etc). These are big disincentives for rational people, but then hey no matter how good the monitoring and regulatory systems are it’s more about ideology than effectiveness for some people.
Well Brendan, fur animals are electrocuted in such ways…they did that to ocelots as well to keep the skin intact…
I guess they can not “harvest” tigers through euthanasia, since this makes the carcasses poisonous….
Brendan, I recall as well another article on tiger farms in China. One journalist was offered tiger meat as dinner…and if the tiger had died of old age , the meat would as well been poisonous for humans…don’t make any sense…
I think that was a story carried by The Independent on the Guilin farm.
>most of our most significant conservation successes, have come when we’ve thrown away the rule-book and tried out new ideas that many of the so-called experts said wouldn’t work…
True. But best not to be like one captive institution I know and throw out the rule book once you have established the rules through no rule book and then years later not be able to replicate how you successfully bred Burramys (mountain pygmy possum).
A large animal park I worked at when I was a teenager (back when many lungfish were deciding to stop lounging on their ‘limbs’ and walk on them instead) kept some tigers out of the main reserve and in small cages – so small the animals could barely turn around. The owners had beautifully taxidermied specimens in their homes and provided likewise for well-off contacts. It was amazing how the few times animal inspectors came to visit the facility (with a prior phone call to make sure they would be have a welcoming party), these tigers would be whisked away somewhere else for a while.
Mind you this same place didn’t mind feeding kids ponies to lions alive either – without the permission of the kids.
Brendan,
Do you know the reason why one of the three Chinese tigers have died after the reintroduction in South Africa?
Hi Libby,
I know exactly what you are talking about re the animal inspectors that phone animal shelters and zoos at least one week in advance , so you can clean the rooms and have a huge welcome party!
I know as well , that some animals are going to be hidden away from the inspectors in the toilet etc. Not funny at all…
IUCN policy statement on breeding programmes:
http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/publications/policy/captive_breeding.htm
” Captive programmes involving species at risk should be conducted primarily for the benefit of the species and without commercial transactions.
Acquisition of animals for such programmes should not encourage commercial ventures or trade.”
” They reintroduced two captive-bred tigers in the wild in South Africa but they could not fend for themselves and they died”.
http://www.jphpk.gov.my/English/Oct05%202j.htm
However, there have been succesful reintoductions into the wild and succesful captive breeding programmes, for example the bison and the Arabian onyx.
Predators , such as the big cats , however learn their hunting skills from their mothers, and possibly it’s more difficult to reintroduce carnivores than grass-eaters??
One drawback as well with captivity bred carnivores, they kill their prey in a more slow and agonising way.
sell em on free market so more New Yorkers can keep pet tigers in bedrooms of small apartments
Are there already more tigers in PRIVATE captivity in the US than left in the wild?
Pixie,
Probably there are more pet tigers in the US than in the wild, guess there are at least 10 000!
Wonder if the NY tigers are housebroken and do they need big, big ” catboxes” ????
“I think its fairly obvious that if you are going to make policy pronouncements before listening to, or establishing some level of respect with the Chinese, odds of influencing policy is going to be seriously handicapped.” – Brendan
I agree completely with you on this Brendan. The lack of respect for individual nations is as well the cause why anti whaling campaigns have failed in whaling nations.
As a side note . I wrote a piece in a paper about Chinese bear bile farms.
Some people got angry with me. They complained why I did care about bears , when dissidents in China were imprisoned, due to their different opinions.
I feel as well, that many people are very impressed by the Chinese economic growth, and because of this don’t want to argue with human rights and animal rights questions… I think as well with China , it is uncomfortable that we accept all those abuses as long as they build skyscrapes and you can buy Louis Vuitton bags in Shanghai…
>Some people got angry with me. They complained why I did care about bears , when dissidents in China were imprisoned, due to their different opinions.
You could ask why people who care about dissidents don’t care about bear bile farms. The two are completely different issues, but people by nature need to make comparisons. They are not mutually exclusive. I have found that people can actually care about more than one thing.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1953213.htm
Once upon a time (not too long ago) the Chinese media would not have even reported the above. Hopefully things are changing. However, as you point out Ann, the fake Vuittons etc are enough for many to turn a blind eye to what really goes on in producing such products. Unless it is in their face, or personalised, (or the cheap handbags fall apart at a sneeze and they lose what is inside them)it can be hard for people to make a connection and feel empathetic enough to push for change.
Sorry, this is off topic, but I saw that Mr. Sidney Holt had posted a comment recently on an old whaling thread:
I have only come across this discussion on the first day of the IWC meeting in Alaska, although I am not attending it this year. I see my “Whales Competing?” paper being quoted, and am of course pleased, although david@tokyo simply chose to attck me personally instead of reading and criticising my paper-. Yesterday the on-line paper American Prospect (www.prospect.org) published my evaluation of the present whaling crisis that some of the participants in this debate here might care to look at. I have concluded that the authorities and commercial interests in Japan do not wish the moratorium on commercial whaling to be lifted, because conducting commercial whaling under Special permits for ostensibly scientific purposes is more convenient. The overwhelming evidence now is that Japan intends to indefinitely expand its unregulated whaling, as the major whale populations recover. The argument that whales are eating “our” fish, and that some of them are now competing with the others and hampering thier recovery are purely devices to justify future unsustainable whaling, which is the only kind that can be profitable. The argument about meat stockpiles is interesting because it is really not about selling the current catches but rather preparing the consumer base for the planned increases in production in the coming decade.. Look at it that way and then consider the discussion now going on in the technical press in Japan regarding the projected design of a new and bigger factory ship, and increasing the numbers of catcher boats in order to fully use the factories processing capacity.
Posted by: Sidney Holt at May 30, 2007 01:17 AM
Hi Ann,
Which thread was the above posted at?
Hi Libby,
The comment can be found here:
” Whales eat Fish & Aussies threaten neighbours:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001427.html#comments
Thanks Ann. Interesting.
david@tokyo”(From TRAFFIC)
“Tiger numbers in the wild are so precarious that we cannot risk any actions that could jeopardize them further.”
Well then, fingers crossed that continued ideological inaction will suddenly start to bear positive results now that it has been reaffirmed.”
The interesting thing about the TRAFFIC report, is that they would have said ‘no to trade’ if they’d found there was a problem with knowledge of, and compliance with the (domestic) ban. They found the opposite- knowledge and compliance with the tiger-ban was very good- and came up exactly the same policy recommendation :-).
At the moment, it is the inertia here that is troubling. It’s like the captain of the Titanic being advised not to change course. The crew on the starboard-side are warning that there might be icebergs they haven’t seen. The passengers are sure giant squids are lurking on the port-side. And the engineering experts are advising to hold the course- the ship’s unsinkable so you just need to be confident that it will turn out all right in the end.
We gambled with the Black Robin when it was down to 2 females with cross-fostering. And when that didn’t work the first time, we used that experiment to get it to work the second time. The stout-legged wren on the other hand, was blessed with a conventional and orthodox strategy and became extinct.
So the question is, when you’ve got something that is failing the tiger so badly, why isn’t time to be trying alternative strategies? Is there something more satisfying to have tigers being killed slowly in traps in the wild- or by inefficient poisons- than losing them on ‘farms’? I’d rather have neither (a) nor (b), but as far as I can tell, that’s not in our stratgey-set.
Why are we debating the merits of tiger-farming, and not the merits of the status quo? Which part of a catastrophic decline in numbers in the wild should I be taking comfort from?
“IUCN policy statement on breeding programmes:”
These are of course, guidelines. The IUCN has a great many policies developed and in an ideal world, things would be straightforward.
The reality is that a lot of conservation management involves making ‘hard decisions’. Tradeoffs and second-best outcomes are the norm. E.g. nobody has ever created a reserve system based on ecological modelling. Reserves just tend to pop up when agencies enjoy the coincidence of opportunties and funds. For that reason, a lot of them are marginal lands (for agriculture), of the wrong size and with inadequate connectiveness.
Fwiw, the IUCN also has policy statements on how commercial use can support conservation measures.
“Brendan,
Do you know the reason why one of the three Chinese tigers have died after the reintroduction in South Africa?”
It’s not been a priority for me I’m afraid, but I’ll be back in China in early July and could make the effort to get the report.
From today’s SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-bite-of-commercialism/2007/06/18/1182018949345.html
Brendan, I can feel your apparent sadness at the situation we face with the tiger (and of course many other species). None of the choices are pleasant. However, what suffering would the animals on farms be subjected to, how do you stop underground operations and their associated welfare issues (as we know, captive animals in ‘world class’ institutions in first world countries are treated questionably), and will all this save wild tigers from cruel poaching practices? Is there some way this can be trialled and carefully regulated and assessed?
Re Siberian tigers born in Chinese zoo:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1953967.htm
Fwiw, I’ve added a few more pictures from Tiger Farms to my blog.
Also, laundering of wildlife products can be deterred by having a limited distribution path, that is insulated from laundering. Southern African countries showed it could be done with ivory, even without being able to DNA type the ivory being exported. With tiger bone, we have the additional advantages of one market- tiger-bone from farms won’t leave the country- and DNA profliling.
I think (based on discussions so far) that some limited trials, using the existing TCM network are being considered.
In terms of poaching, the root problem is the thousands of depserately poor who live (often illegally) on Asian reserves. Chinese demand alas, is often used as the scapegoat. Your basic subsistence-level farmer in a reserve, doesn’t like tigers because they threaten his paltry livestock, or children. I’m not surprised. He’s poisoning off tigers, not to supply the Chinese blackmarket, but to stop his son or daughter or goats getting killed.
Indian policy has been to decide who has legitimate rights to live on these reserves, and who is to be removed. This policy of forcing people off the reserves however, has a large human cost. The families that are removed, have a tendency to kill themselves shortly afterwards.
This tends to rapidly reduce the enthusiasm of officials to manage the reserves ‘for nature’ and ‘for tigers’.
There seems little enthusiasm also, amongst the NGO community to recognise things are a lot more difficult in India than simply creating and policing reserves- and that most of the pressure (habitat loss, local poaching) is a result of human-tiger conflict and not the Chinese black-market. Just how many Indians do we want killing themselves to let the tigers survive?
China is also part of the range of the bengali tiger, and with the rural-urban migration, gives us a new option. There are rural areas now in China where tiger-human conflicts can be minimised. The tiger-farms give us the tool to tackle *one* of the poaching threats, and to be honest, the Chinese have tended to bundle the restoration/reintroduction plans with the captive-breeding programme. But that tends to be the Chinese take on conservation- step 1 is so often an ex situ breeding programme.
I don’t have all the answers, but in this particular case, I get very fustrated by NGos who do (apparently) have all the answers- often without the benefit of being aware of the horrible mess we’ve got ourselves into with the tiger. Also, the current strategy- is costing us a lot of tigers (500 or so per year) and people, and nobody is coming out ahead.
Shutting the whole debate down, isn’t helping.
This is Kirsten Conrad. Two quick comments, as I’ve just come online after a week with no intenet.
First, I’m a vegetarian also for ethical reasons–who am I to take hte lifr of a sentinent being when I can meet my nutritional requirements, relatively easily, wlsewhere? But, I recongnise the right of individuals to make their own decisions and am reluctant to press my views on others.
Second, I believe the South China Tiger who died in South Africa was diagnosed with a weak heart, probably the result of inbreeding. While I am not aware that any analysis that has been done of mortality rates of the population of South China tigers in captivity, I do know that the population has lost robustness and does exhibit defects due to a narrow gene pool.
On the issue of forest guards…I’ve just written up my chapter on Sariska, which has been found to be poached out of tigers. What I was told by several individuals was that guards were “old men wielding sticks…who ran at the sight of well-armed poachers”. They are frequently not paid, nor trained. Hardly an effective detereent against sophisticated poachers, and others can speak to the rifle-weilding guard protecting rhinos in Africa.
On the TRAFFIC report. That report implies that since very little tiger was found in retail and wholesale matrkets, demand is not there. Yet, nobody disputes that illegal trade is headed into China. The investigation failed to penetrate the trade network to find out exactly how these tigers (and possibly other wildlife) are being brought into China.