Chinese Tiger Farms

The horrific cruelty of China's tiger farms revealed – where animals are turned into wine

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT.

China is allowing the sale of captive-bred tiger skins and body parts – flouting a UN agreement which calls for such trade to be banned, according to an environmental lobby group.



Huddled in filthy cages and starved to the extent their fur is hanging off their jutting bones, these once majestic creatures are mercilessly being killed to decorate the homes of the elite, while their bones are ground down to make “tonic” wines.

As few as 3,500 tigers survive in the wild, yet more than 5,000 captive-bred tigers are held in sickening Chinese ‘farms’ and ‘zoos’.

Now, pictures released by environmental campaigners shame China’s failed efforts to protect these endangered creatures.



Investigations by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) have uncovered a legalised domestic trade in the sale of tiger body parts, with skins alone being worth up to £25,000.

Although a 1993 State Council order in China banned the use of tiger bone for medicinal purposes, new evidence suggests a ‘secret’ Government notification on the use of the bones of captive-bred tigers is being used to justify the manufacture of ‘tonic’ wines, which can sell for as much as £130 a bottle.



Tiger bones are soaked in wine, but are not listed as an ingredient in the 'tonic', the reports states.

The report accuses China of defying the will of the international community and calls upon more senior levels of the Government to take control and amend laws to facilitate the destruction of stockpiles of all tiger parts and the phasing out of tiger farms.

EIA also wants the Government to send a clear message to all breeders, consumers and the industry that official policy is to end all demand and trade.

Debbie Banks, Head of EIA’s Tiger Campaign, said: “The stark contradiction between China’s international posture supporting efforts to save the wild tiger and its inward-facing domestic policies which stimulate demand and ultimately drive the poaching of wild tigers represents one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated in the history of tiger conservation.

“Pro-tiger trade policies are championed by only a handful of officials in a couple of Government departments and it behooves China to vigorously address and terminate this intolerable disconnect between words and deeds which so undermines international efforts to save the tiger.”

A vat of the tiger wine "tonic"



Pressure for greater protection of rare species including tigers grew ahead the opening of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species in Bangkok.

A David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation spokesman said: “EIA is working with us on the Tiger Time campaign to raise awareness and stop the illegal trade in tigers from all sources whether wild or farmed.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/380 ... -into-wine

There are only a few dozen tigers left in the wild in China. So how is it that the market in tiger pelts and bones is booming there?

The answer is tiger farms. In one way they resemble puppy mills — they breed large numbers of animals for profit. In two other ways they are very different: puppies leave the mills alive, and the mills are closed to the public. Some say the treatment of tigers on Chinese farms is more like that of chickens or livestock.

In China tiger farms are legal and operate like zoos, charging admission for visitors to see mostly tame animals in barren cages or being forced with beatings to do tricks. Hua Ning, project director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare in China, says that tiger farms sometimes pull out tigers’ teeth or claws.

The cats are often malnourished, reduced to just skin and bones. However their skin and bones are what sell, the former for rugs, the latter to be ground into supposedly tonic tiger wine. Oh — and penises. They are made into a soup that is believed to improve virility and can cost as much as $320 per bowl. (Pfizer, you are missing a golden opportunity to market Viagra to a population that seems to be in great need of it.)

The farms deny that they are anything but zoos and that they kill or sell the cats. Meanwhile, they struggle to stay afloat financially, spending money that should be going to feed starving tigers on freezing the carcasses of slain cats instead.

We’re talking about a lot of tigers. A report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) estimates China’s captive tiger population at 5,000-6,000; The Guardian puts the number at 6,000-10,000. If the purpose of the farms was to breed animals for release into the wild those numbers would be cause for celebration, as experts predict that tigers may become extinct in the wild within 20 years. But no farm has ever released a captive tiger into the wild who survived.

http://www.care2.com/causes/chinese-tig ... parts.html

Hidden In Plain Sight:China's Clandestine Tiger Trade

http://www.eia-international.org/wp-con ... ed-res.pdf

China a culture of ignorance a society of savages.