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An undercover investigation has found zoos to be killing healthy tigers and other endangered species and selling their skins to be stuffed and mounted as trophies for private collectors.

Photo Pappa Razzi 1

The skins are sold by the zoos to taxidermists who prepare them for clients despite government attempts to stifle the trade in tiger products.

Last week undercover reporters from The Sunday Times were offered the skins from two zoo tigers, which were both only a few years old when they died, for over $12,000 US. “There are too many of them and if they are not put down they will die of old age, get incinerated and thrown away.� Andre Brandwood, a Hertford-shire taxidermist, told them.

He said zoos had recognized there was a market and were placing a “shelf life� on animals to cash in by having them stuffed before they got old, suffered illness and then cost them money. “What’s happening is that various zoos [have] realized there’s a market, hence there is a fixed price on tigers.�

Taxidermists sell the stuffed tigers in Britain by exploiting a loophole in the European Union law controlling the trade in endangered animals, reports Times Online.

Will Travers of the Born Free Foundation said, “It is abhorrent to imagine zoo animals, some of which may have been visitors’ favorites, are being killed to feed a demand for trinkets and decorative items.� Photo top, Nikograoher, bottom Shepscrook

Craig Redmond of the Captive Animals’ Protection Society said zoos were over breeding and creating a massive surplus of animals. “Nobody wants old animals. They think the public want to see babies.� he said.

There are about 5,000 tigers left in the world and India is home to 60% of this remaining population. It’s estimated that one is killed there every day.

Since 1996, EIA has been campaigning to force the Indian government to crack down on poaching, trade and habitat destruction. EIA has conducted undercover investigations in consumer countries across Asia, Europe and the USA, to expose the thriving, international illegal trade in tiger products.

China to re-open its domestic trade in tiger goods?

Photo Ianmichaelthomas

The trade has been banned for 14 years, and using material from wild tigers was to remain prohibited. Traditional medicine ingredients such as bone was to be sourced from animals kept in farms, reports BBC.

It’s said that there are at least five tiger farms in China, housing about 5,000 animals, the majority born and bred in captivity.

Animal welfare and conservation groups are virtually united in their opposition.
Re-opening a domestic market would boost poaching for that market, they believe, and would also lead to an increase in international trade, which would remain illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Valmik Thapar, a prominent conservationist who has spent 30 years observing India’s tigers, has no doubts as to what this would mean for the remaining wild populations, based largely in India.

“If there wasn’t a ban on the tiger trade, I assure you there wouldn’t be one single tiger left in India today.” he told a reception at this year’s CITES meeting in The Hague.

Tigers are wild creatures. That’s how we used to treat them and respect them, and putting them behind bars, denuding them of their instincts and their traditional behaviors, has no place in a world which claims to be civilized.

Tiger farms sprang up in China in the 1980’s, when the market was still thriving, prior to the ban.

Bans on national and international trade stemmed the lucrative stream of material flowing out of the farm gates. Some turned to tourism for income.

The tiger farmers receive a sympathetic hearing from some NGO’s which believe that conservation strategies work best when the conservation targets acquire some financial value.

“When trade is outlawed, only outlaws trade.” says Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute in Delhi. Mitra’s thesis is that money should be made from tigers in a number of ways, from ecotourism to trading in tiger parts. “The tiger could easily earn its keep and buy its way out of extinction, if we allow it to do so,” said Mitra. Photo top ElecticArtisan, center Shreesh, bottom Linnirene

Sue Lieberman of WWF International believes captive tigers will do nothing for their wild relatives.

“It costs a lot to keep a tiger in captivity, and next to nothing to kill them in the wild.” she says.

“In any case, legitimate traditional medicine doesn’t need tiger parts. And those who use tiger bone prefer bones from wild animals.”

During debates, Wang Weisheng, from the Wildlife Management Division of China’s forestry department, said the domestic trade would not be re-opened unless that trade would assist in conservation.

A resolution passed by consensus — with China’s endorsement — said that captive populations should be reduced “to a level supportive only of conserving wildlife”.

But what does that mean? How many might be needed to support conservation?

“That might depend from region to region, on the habitat – it might be two in one place and 10 in the next,” said India’s delegate Rajesh Gopal from the National Tiger Conservation Authority. “We don’t really need any captive tigers.” he added.

But Weisheng suggested sales of tiger products to hospitals could raise money which could then be ploughed back into conservation — a very different definition which could, potentially, result in an increased captive stock.

China is hosting a meeting this month at which scientists, economists, NGOs and policymakers will thrash through the various aspects of the issue.

A decision to approve the trade would bring outcry from neighboring countries, western governments, and activists.

“China has done a great deal in 14 years, in terms of education, enforcement, and banning tiger products from traditional medicine.” comments Dr. Lieberman. “So why they would want to risk all that now, just to give a bit of profit to a few rich businessmen, I don’t know.”

But some of those businessmen are apparently making a profit from tiger parts already. Earlier this year, undercover reporters from the UK’s ITN visited Guilin tiger farm and found that tiger meat was being sold illegally, for which Times Online has a supported video. The origin of the meat was validated by an independent laboratory in China.

John Sellar, senior enforcement officer with CITES, told delegates that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has now endorsed the Chinese laboratory’s findings. That has been communicated to the Chinese government, he said.

If China decides it’s not worth the effort and brings the tiger farming era to a close, one issue will be what to do with the 5,000 tigers already in captivity. They lack the instincts needed to survive in the wild, and coming from a small gene pool, they have little to offer the existing wild population.

For Valmik Thapar, a much larger problem looms if farms are not closed and the tiger trade banned forever — the final extinction of this magnificent creature.

“History will never forgive one human being or one collective of human beings if we take any other decision.” he says.

The Tiger Skin Trade

Saving Big Cats — Stopping the Trade

Tiger Poaching Deserves its END

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