DELHI, INDIA: Tiger Range Countries meet in Delhi, India next week (May 2012) to evaluate progress of the Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP) in what will be a true test of their national commitment to end the tiger trade.
The GTRP was signed into existence in November 2010 in St Petersburg, Russia, with the common objective of doubling the world’s wild tiger population by 2022.
The agenda for the Delhi meeting, from May 15-17, includes issues which to date have received too little attention in this forum – demand reduction and effective enforcement.
With final preparations for the meeting underway, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) today warned that concrete action is needed to shut down tiger breeding operations and destroy their stockpiles of tiger skins and bones if the GTRP is to retain serious credibility.
EIA lead campaigner Debbie Banks said: “Successful demand reduction will be dependent on the closure of operations that breed tigers for trade in their parts and derivatives, and those that provide the living specimens to stock such operations.”
Operations in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam have been implicated in the illegal international trade; in China, breeders are allowed to sell farmed tiger skins on the domestic market.
“This trade simply serves to perpetuate demand, undermining enforcement efforts and sending mixed messages to consumers,” added Banks.
Tiger Farming was hotly debated in 2007 at the 14th Meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), where the majority of Parties voted against domestic and international trade in parts of farmed tigers and called for a phasing out of such operations.
No country has yet reported on what action is being taken to fulfil the CITES decision.
While there have been recent high profile seizures and arrests in Thailand, and Vietnam has prosecuted at least one tiger farm owner, there is no report of action against tiger farmers in Laos; China stated in March 2011 that it had inspected tiger breeding operations, but it has not shared information on any convictions of those found selling tiger bone and products.
China also allows tiger breeding operations to maintain freezers full of tiger carcasses, instead of destroying them as urged by CITES. While tiger bone trade is currently prohibited, China has a scheme for registering, labelling and selling the skins but refuses to disclose how many skins have entered the scheme.
“How can these stockpiles possibly be justified?” asked Banks. “Maintaining stockpiles serves no conservation purpose; it only creates confusion and speculates that one day these parts may be traded for profit. That runs completely counter to a commitment to end tiger trade and totally undermines efforts at demand reduction.
“For the credibility of the GTRP, we need to see unequivocal and emphatic action to shut down all commercial tiger breeding operations and to transparently destroy the stockpiles.”
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The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is a UK-based Non Governmental Organisation and charitable trust (registered charity number 1040615) that investigates and campaigns against a wide range of environmental crimes, including illegal wildlife trade, illegal logging, hazardous waste, and trade in climate and ozone-altering chemicals.
Skin trade registration scheme. In 2007, China introduced a mechanism for registering and selling skins from ‘legal’ sources, including captive tigers. EIA has been trying to find out how many skins have been registered, sold, etc, and how legality is determined – read more at http://www.eia-international.org/enforcement-and-asian-big-cats
Auctions of tiger bone wine. In 2011, NGOs reported there was to be a sale of Tiger Bone Wine in Beijing. This was stopped by the SFA after an outcry, but EIA research shows many more sales were advertised and may have gone ahead. We urgently need clarification on these – read more at http://www.eia-international.org/tiger-bone-wine-auctions-in-china
Enforcement action. China has recently reported a number of enforcement actions on wildlife crime in general, but from the reports available it seems it has not focused efforts in the provinces EIA has highlighted as key to the tiger and Asian big cat trade. Criminals we have identified trading in Asian big cat parts between 2005-09 were still operating in July 2011. China has not provided any evidence of targeted enforcement action against known criminals and trade hotspots.
An emaciated Tiger in a Vietnamese farm cage awaits slaughter for TCM Tiger PartsA mascot of an evil, barbaric and low-life society
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Vietnam is the most backward country for the illegal wildlife trade according to the latest wildlife report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Despite the growing middle class of Vietnam, the cultural practice of wildlife witchcraft quackery persists. It is this new wealth that is enabling more Vietnamese to drive the slaughter of wlidlife such as Rhinos, Elephants and Tigers for their body parts. The worse ‘demand countries’ for wildlife parts according to the WWF are Vietnam, China and Thailand.
The demand in wildlife parts is mainly driven from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which is an ancient backward cult in witchcraft quackery. The TCM witchdoctors prey on superstitious simpletons who think drinking tiger bone wine will cure chronic ailments. The TCM Barbaric Cult is a global chronic ailment in superstitious barbarism that is driving sadistic persecution of precious endangered wildlife. TCM is no different to the Khmer Rouge, except the TCM Barbaric Cult targets wildlife instead of people.
They evangelise TCM cures anything from fatigue, stroke, cancer, back pain, migraine and low libido, which is all misleading lies. It has its own quack terms such as ‘Yin Deficiency’, ‘Yang Deficiency’, ‘Qi Stagnation’. TCM dimwits certainly have ‘deficiency’ alright in the intelligence department. Whatever the hocus-pocus names, TCM is backward, barbaric, sadistic, cruel, illegal, and doesn’t bloody well work anyway. Only sad simpletons would spend a cent on quackery. Those who traffick in wildlife parts deserve the same fate as the wildlife.
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TCM relies on the illegal black market in wildlife parts trafficking. It is overdue for the backward practices of TCM to be outlawed globally.
A TCM practitioner plying her trade in Yin/Yang Bollocks
The following articles highlight the problem of the increasing illegal trade in wildlife parts for Traditional Chinese Medicine. When one visits the cities of these countries and see the every inctreasing shining skyline, one can be mistaken for believing one is entering a modern civilisation.
One the eve of the opening of the latest CITES session the wildlife group WWF has released a report that shows Vietnam is the worse country for the illegal wildlife trade. In the traffic light system used by the WWF to rank countries Vietnam scored a red in trade in rhino and tigers with a yellow card for elephants.
“It is time for Vietnam to face the fact that its illegal consumption of rhino horn is driving the widespread poaching of endangered Rhinos in Africa, and that it must crack down on the illegal rhino horn trade. Viet Nam should review its penalties and immediately curtail retail markets, including Internet advertising for horn,” said Elisabeth McLellan, Global Species Programme manager at WWF.
A number of Vietnamese people have been arrested over recent years in South Africa for being involved in rhino smuggling. Even some Vietnamese diplomats have been caught involved in the trade.
China is given a yellow card for its involvement in the elephant ivory trade. The country has been highlighted as having inadequate management of its legal ivory market and this offers a conduit for illegally poached ivory to find a legitimate market.
Tusks of Elephants savagedly butchered for TCM, their tusks chainsawed off while still alive. This is a TCM stockpile of tusks intercepted in a shipping container in Malaysia
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Skulls of Cambodians savagedly butchered by the Khmer Rouge This is a stockpile of human skulls in the Tuolsleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh
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The WWF reports calls on the Chinese government to dramatically improve its enforcement of the ivory market. It also calls on the government to remind its workers involved in major projects in Africa that anyone caught importing illegal wildlife products into China would be prosecuted, and if convicted, severely penalized.
While China got a yellow card for the ivory trade Thailand scored a red due to a legal loop-hole that makes it easy for illegally poached ivory to enter the luxury goods market.
“In Thailand, illegal African ivory is being openly sold in up-scale boutiques that cater to unsuspecting tourists. Governments will be taking up this troubling issue this week. So far Thailand has not responded adequately to concerns and, with the amount of ivory of uncertain origin in circulation, the only credible option at this stage is a ban on ivory trade,” McLellan said.
There is good news in the report as well. The WWF commends the countries from central Africa who recently signed a multinational agreement to tackle poaching.
“Although most Central African countries receive yellow or red scores for elephants, there are some encouraging signals. Last month Gabon burned its entire ivory stockpile, to ensure that no tusks would leak into illegal trade, and President Ali Bongo committed to both increasing protections in the country’s parks and to ensuring that those committing wildlife crimes are prosecuted and sent to prison.” said WWF Global Species Programme manager Wendy Elliott.
The brightest spot of the report though goes to Nepal which last year, 2011, saw no losses to its rhino population due to improvements to anti-poaching and other law enforcement efforts.
[Source: ‘Vietnam gets failing grade in WWF’s illegal wildlife trade report card’, by Wynne Parry, LiveScienceSun, 20120722, ^http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/vietnam-gets-failing-grade-in-wwfs-illegal-wildlife-trade-report-card]
.Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis)
Members of the species once inhabited rainforests, swamps and cloud forests in India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China.
In historical times they lived in southwest China, particularly in Sichuan.
But with TCM barbarism they have become persecuted and are now critically endangered,
with only six substantial populations in the wild: four on Sumatra, one on Borneo, and one in the Malay Peninsula.
(Photo: Bill Konstant/International Rhino Foundation)
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Rhinoceroses are poached for their horns that are then sold on the global black market to collectors and for medicinal purposes.
A conservation group, the World Wildlife Fund, has put together a report card ranking 23 nations’ compliance with an international treaty regulating the trade in wild animals. The report card focuses on three species sought after on the international black market: elephants, tigers and rhinoceroses, and evaluates how well certain countries have held up their commitments as part of the treaty.
“These are just three species, and they are probably the three most talked about, so they are a kind of bellwether for wider problems,” said Colman O Criodain, wildlife trade specialist with the WWF.
The report looks at countries where these animals originate and must travel through, as well as the countries where they arrive for sale. There were some bright spots: India and Nepal received green marks for all three species, showing they had made progress toward complying with the treaty and enforcing policies to prevent the illegal trade.
Many countries, however, received red marks indicating they are failing to uphold their commitments under the treaty.
There have already been consequences for animals. In the last decade, the western black rhino went extinct and the Indochinese Javan rhinoceros was eradicated from Vietnam. Poaching played a crucial role, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Other subspecies of these large, plant-eating creatures are driven by demand for their horns. In Vietnam, demand for rhino horn has boomed thanks to rumors it has healing and aphrodisiac properties, O Criodain said.
For Asians seeking aphrodisiacs?Viagra is proven to work, but TCM is bollocks
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The report calls out Vietnam, which WWF says is the top destination for South African rhino horn, saying Vietnam’s penalties for participating in the illegal trade are weak and legal measures are insufficient to curtail illegal trade on the Internet. “Despite numerous seizures elsewhere implicating (Viet Nam), there has been no recorded seizure of rhino horn in the country since 2008,” reads a statement issued by WWF.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, a treaty signed by 175 nations, makes nearly all commercial trade in rhino horns, elephant ivory, tiger parts and other species threatened with extinction illegal. In addition, signatories committed to regulating trade within their borders.
WWF ranked nations’ compliance with the treaty — evaluating whether or not the nation had adopted policies that supported the treaty — and the nations’ enforcement of those policies.
A nation could have good laws on the books but fail to enforce them. For instance, China has laws tightly controlling the sale of elephant ivory. However, it does not have a strong record of enforcing them, O Criodain said.
The report card is not comprehensive; rather it is a snapshot that focuses on certain countries that face the highest levels of illegal trade in these three species. Countries from which a particular species has been eradicated, such as Central Africa which has lost all of its rhinos, escaped an evaluation, O’Criodain noted.
The evaluation is based on government announcements reported in media, CITES documentation and information collected by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network that is a joint program of the WWF and IUCN.
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Bile being extracted from a bear’s gall bladder – while it is conscious
(ENV photo)
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In Vietnam, Ha Long Bear Bile Farms continue to flout the law by selling bile to Korean tourists @ $30 per cc.
Vietnam’s bears are being pushed to the edge of extinction according to ENV, primarily due to the illegal hunting and trade to support the demand for bear bile used as a traditional form of medicine (TCM). Hundreds of Asian tourists including many Koreans, visit per week, watch the extraction process, drink bear gall wine and pay $30 per CC for take-away bile. The plight of these bears is truly pitiful.
Most of the approximately 3,500 bears in Vietnamese farms are thought to have been caught as cubs in the wild and then raised for the painful extraction of bile from their gall bladders.
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ENV produced this powerful public service announcement to persuade people not to drink bear bile wine.
‘Vietnam, Laos and Mozambique are the countries that do the least to crack down on an illegal trade in animal parts that is threatening the survival of elephants, rhinos and tigers, the WWF conservation group said on Monday.
In its ‘Wildlife Crime Scorecard’ report, it said 23 countries surveyed mostly in Africa and Asia, the main sources and destinations of animal parts, could all do more to enforce laws banning a trade that WWF said was increasingly run by international crime syndicates.’
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‘Vietnam proposes legalizing use of tiger parts in traditional medicines’
‘Vietnam has proposed a move that activists allege would boost tiger poaching across the world. The country has proposed legalising the use of parts of captive bred tigers that die of natural causes in traditional medicines. If approved, this is likely to spur demand for body parts of the big cat in the international market and hit tiger conservation efforts currently underway. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) of Vietnam sent the proposal to the prime minister of the country in March this year.
The disclosure has taken the international community, which is currently discussing a coordinated strategy for recovering global tiger population in New Delhi, by shock. The proposal was brought to the notice of the tiger range countries by non-profits when they were discussing the measures to eliminate the demand for tiger parts during the 1st Stocktaking Meeting of the Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP) between May 15 and May 17. The conference was organised by National Tiger Conservation Authority of India along with the Global Tiger Forum, Global Tiger Initiative and the World Bank to take stock of the GTRP, which was adopted in 2010 and aims at doubling the global wild tiger population by 2022. Currently, around 3,200 wild tigers thrive in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Vietnam, however, did not mention the MARD proposal in its draft GTRP implementation report, a document each of the tiger range countries submitted to explain the actions taken by their governments for tiger conservation. The proposal is part of an investigation report prepared by the MARD on the wild and captive-bred tigers in Vietnam. Around 112 tigers are kept in breeding farms in Vietnam. “According to Vietnam’s law and International Convention, any activity of trading or using tigers and tiger products is prohibited. Tiger breeding facilities therefore can gain no profit. Moreover, because of the regulations against tiger trading, these facilities don’t have specific breeding purposes,” says the report. It further states that “dead tigers (from captive facilities) can be used to make specimens and traditional medicine on a pilot basis.”
But conservationists are not pleased. “This is in contradiction of the spirit of UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and GTRP. We want to give a clear message to Vietnam that if it goes ahead with the plan, we might have to take action against it in whatever capacity we can,” says Keshav Varma, programme director of the Global Tiger Initiative of the World Bank. The tiger range countries, including Vietnam, are signatories to CITES that prohibits the trade in tiger parts and derivatives, including domestic trade.
When asked, the representative of Vietnam’s ministry of natural resource and environment said the proposal came from a different ministry and he could not say much about it. He, however, hoped that the proposal would not be approved by their prime minister. “We are appalled that a few countries promise something else on international platforms while their domestic policies imply something else. If they allow trade of dead tigers kept in captivity, many tigers will be killed in the wild and their parts will be sold under the wrap of this scheme,” says Debbie Banks of UK-based non-profit, Environmental Investigation Agency.
So when you visit your Ying Yang Traditional Chinese Medicine Quack, remember this tiger suffered for your healing cult.
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Is China above board?
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In the meeting apprehensions were also expressed regarding China’s domestic policies on captive tiger breeding and trade. For long tiger bones have been used in traditional medicines and wines in China. This had made the country principal destination for tiger parts from all over the world. In 1993, China prohibited the use, manufacture, sale, import and export of tiger bone products and products labelled as containing tiger bones.
However, in 2007, the State Forestry Administration (SFA), of China issued guidelines for the registration, labelling and sale of tiger and leopard skins of “legal origin.” “This seems to contradict China’s claim that trade in tiger parts is banned in the country. We have consistently requested clarification from China over just how many skins have been registered, how many have been sold under this policy, how many have come from captive bred sources, how many are reportedly from the wild and how legality has been verified. They have never responded,” says Banks.
China has also failed to meet the CITES resolution that it would take “measures to restrict the captive population to a level supportive only to conserving wild tigers.” The captive tigers in China have reportedly increased from 6,000 in 2010 to 9,000 now. There are allegations that the captive farms stockpiles the tiger bones and other parts of dead tigers. There is no transparency from China on where these stockpiles end up. “The issue of whether stockpiling of tiger bones in the captive farms in China is for research or for commercial use needs further clarification and is a serious cause of concern. We urge that China should follow the CITES resolution of keeping the captive bred tiger population restricted to support wild population in letter and spirit,” says Rajesh Gopal, member secretary of National Tiger Conservation Authority.
Roaring demand for tiger bone tonic wine during the Year of the Tiger has delighted those taking part in the underground industry but sent chills through conservationists.
Despite a national prohibition on dealing in tiger body parts, online trade and tiger farms are flourishing, leading opponents to call for additional protection of the endangered species.
“In Western countries, people believe in Western medicine but there has seldom been as much enthusiasm for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as there is now, especially those made from animals,” said Ge Rui, Asian Regional Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
She said tiger farms are now a major threat to the species. While the farms are tolerated, the State Forest Ministry issued a notice at the end of last year stating that tiger bodies from the farms should be sealed for safekeeping.
“The government has made a great deal of effort to curb the illegal trade in rare and endangered species in recent years,” Ge said. “But their work is mainly focused on cross-border trade. The government allows the operation of tiger farms.”
According to statistics from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, there are now about 3,200 wild tigers worldwide.
In China, only about 20 tigers are thought to be left in the wild.
“The existence of tiger farms and increasing illegal trade in tiger products is seriously threatening this precious species,” she said. “In the Year of the Tiger, we should be doing more.”
Chinese animal rights groups recently launched an online campaign pushing for more protection of wild animals.
Despite the concern, consumers are still eager to get their hands on the illegal tonic wine.
“Tiger bone tonic wine will surely be popular this year,” said a seller from the Beijing Xinghuo Company.
“Nothing could be better than sending it to your relatives or leaders during the Year of the Tiger, both for good wishes and to keep them healthy.”
The company sells a wide range of wines, including a tiger bone tonic wine.
A 500 ml bottle of tiger bone wine, made in Heilongjiang province, sells for 1,380 yuan.
Tiger Wine – extracted from Tigers
It may as well be the cerebral fluid of Cambodians butchered at the hand of the Khmer Rouge
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Human Cerebrospinal fluid
Not as marketable in test tubes, but then TCM Cultists haven’t got around to bottling and branding this yet
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However, a bottle of tiger bone wine, said to be from Tongrentang, the place that supplied medicine to the royal pharmacy during the Qing Dynasty for 188 years, is even more expensive. Such wine, made in 1990s, sells for around 25,000 yuan.
The wine, which is believed to have medicinal properties, should improve with age, so the older the bottle, the higher the price. Those produced in the 1980s can sell for 60,000 yuan for 323 ml.
“Real tiger bone tonic wine is very popular in the market now,” said Sjkexiao, a 20-year old man who was looking to sell two bottles online that he claimed was tiger bone wine made in Tongrentang in 1984.
He said tiger bone tonic wine had been increasing in price in recent years.
Tigers have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries. Tiger bone tonic wine is used in the treatment of arthritis and rheumatism.
China joined the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1981. It imposed a ban on the harvesting of tiger bones and outlawed all trade in tiger body parts in 1993.
As a result, tiger bone remedies were removed from TCM dictionaries.
“Medicines with parts from rare animals are not allowed to be sold now,” said a staff member, surnamed Zhang, at a Cachet pharmacy.
She suggested another medicinal wine, named Hongmao Medical Wine, that was priced at 250 yuan and which claimed to contain leopard bones.
“Money cannot buy a genuine bottle of tiger bone wine because of its scarcity,” she said. “You can never find such medicine in the stores now. Wine containing real tiger bones is really more effective than others.”
However, doctors were quick to question the medicinal value of tiger bone tonic.
“It is the same as other medicinal wines,” said Yue Debo, a doctor with more than 20 years’ experience in the department of orthopedics at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital. “It doesn’t have any miraculous effect.”
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Comment: by Willson 20111230:
“This is why I will never allow any of my companies or affiliates to do business with the Chinese. The Chinese are unworthy of respect and therefore unworthy of becoming a trade partner. The trade in tiger bone wine is not an underground industry. It is a mainstream industry condoned by the Chinese government. My companies will never sell technology to the Chinese so long as this and other wildlife is threatened with government sanctioning.”
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Comment: by Dan 2011-12-30 06:37
“China is shameful!“
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‘India lucrative target for illegal wildlife trade’
India remains a “lucrative target” in the USD 20 billion illegal trade of wildlife articles per year, an official document says.
“The most serious and immediate risk to many species is poaching for wildlife trade. …South Asian countries account for 13 to 15 per cent of the world’s biodiversity and so remain a lucrative target of the trade,” says the report prepared by the Environment Ministry.
Wild animals are killed for the flourishing illegal international trade in their skins, bones, flesh, fur, used for decoration, clothing, medicine, and unconventional exotic food, says the Environmental and Social Framework Document for “Strengthening Regional Cooperation in Wildlife Protection in Asia”.
Victims of the trade include the iconic tiger and elephant, the snow leopard, the common leopard, the one-horn rhino, pangolin, brown bear, several species of deer and reptiles, seahorses, star tortoises, butterflies, peacocks, hornbills, parrots, parakeets and birds of prey, and corals, it says.
Pangolines poached for TCM
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“The primary market for many of these products is outside South Asia, often in East Asia for items of presumed pharmacological utility,” says the document is prepared for financial assistance from the World Bank under regional International Development Association (IDA) window.
Noting that the wildlife trade is “big business”, it said due to the clandestine nature of the enterprise, reliable estimates of the composition, volume and value of the trade remain elusive.
“The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) suggests that the global value of the illegal wildlife related trade exceeds USD 20 billion per year and probably ranks third after narcotics and the illegal weapons trade,” it said.
The report says that poaching techniques are “extremely gruesome”.
“The more egregious methods include skinning or dehorning live animals, and transportation of live creatures in inhuman conditions,” it says.
Particularly damaging is the banned trade in tiger parts much of which is used for its presumed pharmaceutical benefits.
“The World Chinese Medicine Society has declared that tiger parts are not necessary in traditional medicines and that alternatives are available and effective. Yet the illegal trade still flourishes.
Poaching has become so intense that tigers have disappeared from many parks throughout Asia.
“Nowhere has the impact been greater than in India and Nepal which remain the bastions of tiger conservation,” says the document and added that Nepal has emerged as the transit hub for the trade in illegal wildlife commodities destined for consumption in East China.
“Laos is recognized as both a source and transit country while Viet Nam is a transit hub for illegal wildlife trade,” it says.
The economic value of the illegal wildlife trade is determined primarily by cross-border factors. Wildlife are poached in one country, stockpiled in another, and then traded beyond the South Asia region.
“Lack of uniformity in enforcement can result in migration of the trade to other countries with less stringent enforcement. The trade is controlled by criminal organizations which have considerable power over the market and the prices paid to poachers and carriers, making control of the trade even more challenging,” it says.
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‘SA breeders embrace growing Asian demand for lion bones’
Desktop activists have joined conservationists to raise awareness about the growing demand for lion bones from users of traditional Chinese medicine, but breeders have defended the right to hunt lions born in captivity.
Last week, the online activist organisation Avaaz.com launched a petition imploring President Jacob Zuma to ban the trade of lion bones. “As citizens from around the world with great respect for South Africa and its magnificent natural heritage, we appeal to you to ban the cruel and senseless trade in lion bones and organs, which is encouraging an industry that could drive lions to the brink of extinction,” says the petition, which garnered over 630 000 signatures in a week.
Lion bones are a sought-after ingredient used to make lion bone wine, a substitute for the traditional Asian cure-all, tiger bone wine, which fetches up to R250 000 a case at illicit auctions.
Conservationists have warned that captive breeding and canned hunting programmes in South Africa are providing a source for the lion bone trade. Canned lion hunting is legal in South Africa, as is the exporting of lion carcasses. Lion populations across Africa have been reduced by 90% over the past 50 years, but lion breeders say their operations have nothing to do with the continent’s wild populations.
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The price of trophies .
Breeders can benefit financially a number of times from the same lion. Cubs are often rented as tourist attractions and visitors pay to pet and interact with them. The fee paid by visitors is then fed back into captive breeding programmes. As adults, the lions are sold to hunters in canned hunting arrangements.
Farmers and hunting operators charge in the region of about $20 000 (R160 000) as a “trophy price” and hunters can expect to pay around $18 000 (R145 000) for other services, excluding taxidermy.
Bob Parsons – Elephant Killer
But the hunters are only interested in the head and skin of the lion, and often leave the bones with the breeder, who can then sell the bones, with a government permit, to Asian buyers for use in making lion bone wine.
It’s estimated that a complete lion skeleton can sell for as much as R80 000. Last year it emerged that over 1 400 lion and leopard trophies were exported from the country in 2009 and 2010.
According to the environmental affairs minister, in 2010, 153 live lions were exported as well as 46 lion skins, 235 carcasses, 592 trophies, 43 bodies and 41 skulls. It was noted that these figures were incomplete as the provinces had not yet captured all their data. Yet there was a 150% growth in exports of lion products from 2009 and 2010.
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‘Amplifying an illegal industry
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Chris Mercer, director of the Campaign Against Canned Hunting, said hunting captive-bred lions was “hideously damaging” to conservation. “It’s farming with alternative livestock. They’re only doing it because they make more money farming lions than they do sheep or cattle. But they don’t realise they’re harming the wild populations by creating and amplifying an illegal industry and allowing it to prosper,” he said.
Mercer said he believes the export of lion bones and in fact the entire canned hunting industry should be banned. He pointed out that there was a huge overlap between the rhino horn and lion bone trade. “Many of the Asiatic groups dealing with lion bones are the same people dealing with rhino horn,” he said.
He criticised government for taking a simplistic view of the matter and overlooking the dangers the lion bone trade poses. “The very people who are doing our rhino horn [poaching] are making money out of this. You can just imagine how the illegal trade is going to piggy-back itself onto this legal trade,” he warned.
Banning the entire trade will be difficult. There are almost 200 lion breeders in the country, many of whom are part of the powerful Predator Breeders’ lobby group. The breeding of lions for trophy hunting is a lucrative business. In 2009, the economic value of trophy hunting was estimated to be between R153-million and R832-million.
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Rapidly going extinct
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But Pieter Kat, director of the UK-based conservation organisation LionAid, said a lot could be achieved simply by placing a ban on the export of lion bones. Lions are listed on appendix two of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which means that a government permit is needed to export any lion products. “It will take a position of responsibility by South Africa to say, ‘No more, we will not allow this,'” he said.
“South Africa is within its rights [to] say no more export permits,” said Kat.
Kat said that while one could argue about the ethics of breeding lions just to be shot, it was important to bear in mind that whatever South Africa did in terms of its legal trade in lion bones would affect wild lion populations all over the continent.
Kat pointed out that there are only about 20 000 lions left on the entire continent – down from about 200 000 in the 1970s. In the past few years Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville have lost all their lions, while countries like Nigeria, Malawi and Senegal have only a few dozen lions left.
“We’re dealing with a species that is rapidly going extinct but because we are not really focused on lions – we’re talking about elephants and rhinos – it’s a silent extinction,” he said.
He warned that allowing the trade in lion bones to proliferate would stimulate a demand for the product. “Soon someone will [realise] it’s cheaper for to poach than to pay the owner of a captive animal to get the bones,” he said.
But Professor Pieter Potgieter, chairperson of the South African Predator Breeders’ Association, defended the industry saying there is little difference between breeding lions and any other mammal. “Chickens are killed by humans. How are lions different from them?” he asked.
“In principle a lion is not more or less than a crocodile, an ostrich or a butterfly. It’s a form of life. Breeding animals for human exploitation is a natural human process,” he said.
Potgieter said that breeding and hunting lions was only deplorable in the eyes of the public because a “sympathetic myth has been created about the lion as the king of the animals”.
He justified the practice, saying the export of lion bones is a legal trade authorised by the department of environmental affairs and denied that South Africa’s approach to captive breeding and canned lion hunting was feeding into the Asian demand for lion bones. “I don’t think that market is being created by the South African situation. That would happen anyhow and the more the Asian tiger gets extinct, the more people will try to get hold of lion bones as a substitute,” he said.
In 2007 former environmental affairs minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk attempted to put the brakes on canned lion hunting. It was widely reported that the activity had been banned in the country but this is not the case.
Some changes to legislation were made but the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Predator Breeders’ Association and overturned an attempt to enforce a two-year waiting period during which a captive-bred lion would be allowed to roam freely in an extensive wildlife system before being hunted, which conservationists had labeled an attempt to “pretend that the lion is wild”.
The environmental affairs department did not respond to questions by the time of going to print.’
‘Indonesian police seized 14 preserved bodies of critically-endangered Sumatran tigers in a raid on a house near Jakarta, a spokesman said Thursday. A man identified as F.R. was arrested Tuesday in a suburban area of Depok suspected of his involvement in the illegal wildlife trade, national police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told AFP.
“We confiscated whole preserved bodies of 14 tigers, a lion, three leopards, a clouded leopard, three bears and a tapir and a tiger head,” he said, adding that investigations were ongoing.
The Clouded Leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)
Is a felid found from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China, and has been classified as vulnerable in 2008 by IUCN.
Poached for barbaric TCM.
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Cruel almost beyond belief, this Chinese farm breeds hundreds of tigers in rows of battery cages … so they can be killed and turned into wine…
King, the Siberian tiger, stares at me through the bars of his cage. His two beautiful, graceful companions pace back and forth across their tiny compound. They look crushingly bored. The most exciting thing they can do is paw mournfully at the dirty pools of rainwater on the floor of their cage.
Although the Xiongsen tiger park, near Guilin in south-east China, appears to be a depressingly typical Third World zoo, with a theme park restaurant and open areas where tigers roam, it actually hides a far more sinister secret: it’s a factory farm breeding tigers to be eaten and to be made into wine.
In row upon row of sheds, hundreds of tigers are incarcerated in battery-like cages which they never leave until they are slaughtered.
Visitors to the park can dine on strips of stir-fried tiger with ginger and Chinese vegetables. Also on the menu are tiger soup and a spicy red curry made with tenderised strips of the big cat. Visitors can wash it all down with a glass or two of wine made from Siberian tiger bones.
A waitress at the farm’s restaurant tells me proudly: ‘The tiger meat is produced here. It’s our business. When Government officials come here, we kill a tiger for them so they have fresh meat. Other visitors are given meat from tigers killed in fights. We now have 140 tigers in the freezer.
“We also sell lion meat, bear’s paw, crocodile and snake. The bear’s paw has to be ordered in advance as it takes a long time to cook.”
Hundreds of tigers are incarcerated in battery-like cages by the Chinese TCM Cultists
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The waitress clearly does not care that she is selling meat and wine from endangered species. She is not worried that selling them is against Chinese and international law, and helps to fuel the poaching that is driving tigers to extinction.
Tigers and other endangered species are being reared on an industrial scale throughout China, despite international treaties forbidding this. The Mail discovered three factory farms breeding tigers in China. The Guilin farm alone has 1,300 tigers, including the incredibly rare and elusive Siberian sub-species.
It rears and slaughters Bengal, South China and White tigers. More than 300 African lions and 400 Asiatic black bears are also reared here for food and traditional Chinese medicines.
The Chinese authorities claim that farms like the one at Guilin are a vital part of the country’s conservation efforts, and that they will one day release these endangered creatures back into the wild.
But my visit to the Xiongsen Bear andTiger Mountain Village shows their real intention could not be more different. For the fact is that these animals could never survive in the wild.
Having spent their lives in tiny, battery-style units, they cannot hunt and would be dead within days of being released. Each shed at the tiger farm – and I saw at least 100 – houses between three and five tigers in a space no larger than a typical family living room. In relative terms, they have about as much space as a battery hen.
The animals have all been bred on the farm. The cubs are taken from their mothers at three months and put in a kindergarten. I saw around 30 tiger cubs in this creche, where they stay until they are old enough to be transferred to the battery units.
Many of the youngsters kept leaping at the fencing. The younger ones simply wanted to play like kittens. The older cubs were already showing signs of stress.
Tigers are naturally solitary creatures that roam over dozens of square miles, so it’s hardly surprising that life in the cages drives them insane. I saw numerous examples of stress-related repetitive behaviour.
The mature animals paced back and forth across their cages for hours on end – three steps forward, three steps back. Some hurled themselves at the bars of their prison cells, while others simply stared into space.
Over-crowding drives the creatures to attack each other, often resulting in death. Officially it is only the tigers killed in such fights that can be eaten or turned into wine. But it is clear that many of them die as a result of a bullet to the head.
They are not the only animals killed. For entertainment, visitors to the animal park can watch the ‘live killing exhibition’, a sick spectacle in which animals are ‘hunted’ and torn to pieces by tigers while onlookers cheer.
I watched in horror as a young cow was stalked and caught by a tiger. Its screams filled the air as it struggled.
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So Visit China – see its wildlife, taste its wildlife, souvenir its wildlife!Not sure what TCM says how Panda Parts heal you or give you a hard on?
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A wild tiger would dispatch its prey within moments, but these tigers’ natural killing skills have been blunted by years of captivity. The tiger tried to kill – tearing, biting at the cow’s body in a pathetic-looking frenzy – but it simply didn’t know how. Eventually, the keepers stepped in and put the cow out of its misery.
Virtually all the tigers from the Guilin farm end up at a winery 100 miles to the north, their carcasses dumped in huge vats of rice wine and left to rot for up to nine years.
The Chinese believe that the tiger’s strength passes into the wine as its body decomposes. They also believe that it is a powerful medicine that wards off arthritis, strengthens bones and acts as a general tonic.
Smelling like a mixture of methylated spirits, antiseptic and congealed meat, it is difficult to believe that anyone would willingly drink it, and yet people pay up to £100 a pint for it.
The Guilin farm also has its own small winery and acts as a distribution centre across China. The distribution manager showed me around with a Chinese tourist.
A small dingy office acts as the nerve centre of the warehouse. On the wall were charts showing that day’s deliveries of tiger wine across China. Six crates were sent to Wuhan and another to Tianjing. Six crates of ‘powdered bear’ were sent to Shanghai. Numerous other cities and countless deliveries were also listed.
We were led into the warehouse, where I was hit with the disgusting and potent aroma of tiger wine. I was led past countless crates containing the foul-smelling brew. In the corner of the warehouse was a huge brown earthenware vat. It must have held at least 50 gallons, and its contents were probably worth around £12,000.
“We have three ages of wine,” said the manager. “Three, six or nine-years old. It helps with arthritis and strengthens old people’s bones.”
She slid aside the lid of the earthenware vat to reveal a reddish-brown liquid with an overpowering smell of meths. A piece of string was pulled out of the vat. Attached to the end was a tiger’s rib cage. Small slivers of dark red flesh could still be seen clinging to the bone, even though it had probably been in the vat for at least three years.
The manager then filled up an old plastic water bottle with a pint of wine and handed it to my fellow tourist. He paid £30 for it.
Whatever westerners think of tiger wine, the Chinese regard it as a potent drink with almost magical qualities. In the past, a Chinese doctor may have prescribed small quantities of wine for a short period of time.
But in recent years, big companies have moved into the market and industrialised all parts of the industry. Now the wine is becoming an essential drink for China’s corrupt bureaucrats and the nation’s nouveaux riches.
Conservationists say tiger farming is not only barbaric, it could lead to the animal’s extinction in the wild.
“It is stimulating demand for meat and wine, and this will inevitably lead to more poaching,” says Grace Gabriel, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
“It costs £5,000 to raise a tiger from a cub to maturity in one of these farms, while it costs no more than £20 in India to poach one. On the market, a dead tiger can fetch £20,000.
“With such a huge margin, it is inevitable that more people will poach wild tigers if demand increases,” she adds. “There are only a few thousand tigers left in the wild, and the last thing they need is increased demand for their body parts.”
If present trends continue, tigers could be extinct in the wild within a decade. Three subspecies have already vanished. Chinese tigers are down to a pitiful 20 animals in the wild and are “functionally extinct”.
There are only about 450 Siberian tigers left in Russia’s Far East. The remaining 3-4,000 are sparsely scattered across India, Nepal and South-East Asia.
The trouble is that, as tigers become rarer in the wild, their ‘street value’ increases, which in turn encourages even more poaching.
Tigers have already become extinct in India’s most famous reserve at Sariska. Numbers have plunged in several other reserves, too.
Most of these tigers will have been sold to traders in China. The Chinese authorities do virtually nothing to clamp down on this illegal trade, and many corrupt bureaucrats and police earn substantial sums from it.
And demand is continuing to increase as ever more bizarre uses for tigers are promoted. Tiger whiskers are used to ‘cure’ laziness and protect against bullets. Their brains, when mixed with oil and rubbed on the skin, are promoted as a cure for acne. Penises are used as aphrodisiacs, while hearts apparently impart courage, cunning and strength.
Tiger farmers also have their eyes on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. They hope that a huge influx of tourists will lead to increased demand for tiger wine.
Although it is illegal to trade internationally in such tiger products as wine, the Chinese are lobbying hard to get the law relaxed. This June, the Chinese Government is expected to press the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to allow the trade in ‘medicines’ such as wine produced from farmed tigers.
If agreed, it will lead to a massive increase in tiger farming and tens of thousands of these noble beasts will spend their lives in battery cages.
If the Chinese get their way, then it will almost certainly drive the tigers over the cliff into extinction.
It is almost too late to save this magnificent creature – but not quite.
In February 2010, at the advent of the Chinese Year of the Tiger, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reported that tigers were in crisis around the world. With as few as 3,200 left of this endangered species compared to 100,000 a century ago, it was clear that this would be the vital tipping point for tigers.
Two key causes of the tiger’s plight are (1) poaching to feed consumer demand for tiger body parts, mostly for use in traditional Asian medicines (TCM) and folk remedies, and (2) deforestation as more and more forests are cleared for paper and palm oil, tiger habitat disappears daily.
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‘New Study shows Bengal Tiger’s Habitat in Danger’ .
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A new study by WWF scientists and partner organizations has found global climate change could shrink Bangladesh’s Sundarbans tiger habitat by 96 %, potentially reducing the tiger population to fewer than 20 breeding individuals!
An estimated sea level rise of 11.2 inches above 2000 levels by 2070 means this unique mangrove ecosystem could disappear within half a century.
The Sundarbans delta is the largest mangrove forest in the world.
This UNESCO World Heritage Site is shared by India and Bangladesh and sits at the mouth of the Ganges River. It is home to an estimated 254-432 Bengal tigers, the only tiger population adapted to live in mangroves. The tigers here regularly swim between islands and are the only tigers to have crabs and other seafood as an important part of their diet.
The area is an amazing ecosystem that houses a plethora of species including the spotted deer (the tiger’s prey), water birds, many kinds of fish, marine mammals, crocodiles, and snakes. The landscape naturally protects the area from natural disasters such as cyclones, storm surges, and wind damage. The mangroves are home not only to endangered fauna like tigers, but also to several million people who depend on the Sundarbans for their livelihoods.
The Bengal tiger population has already been under threat from poaching and habitat destruction and loss, and research suggests that the seas may be rising faster than originally thought.
Worldwide, tigers occupy only 7 percent of their historic range with as few as 3,200 left in the wild. The study encourages local governments to take immediate action to conserve and expand mangroves while cracking down on poaching. It suggests that globally, countries should work strongly on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to save the Sundarbans.
The Siberian tiger is a tiger subspecies inhabiting mainly the Sikhote Alin mountain region with a small subpopulation in southwest Primorye province in the Russian Far East. In 2005, there were 331–393 adult-subadult Amur tigers in this region, with a breeding adult population of about 250 individuals.
The main threats to the survival of the Siberian Tiger are (1) poaching, (2) habitat loss, and (3) illegal hunting of ungulates, which are tigers’ main prey (Ed: looks similar to a lama). Because they increase access for poachers, roads are another important threat to the Siberian tiger. Intrinsic factors such as inbreeding depression and disease are also potential threats to this big cat, but are less understood.
The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), also known as the Amur tiger
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Poaching
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Roads in Amur tiger habitat, Russian Far East Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) research has demonstrated that human-caused mortality accounts for 75-85% of all Amur tiger deaths. Current estimates indicate that 20-30 tigers are poached in the Russian Far East each year, although actual numbers may be higher.
Population modeling based on Siberian Tiger Project field data suggests that poaching rates exceeding 15% of the adult female population could have dangerous repercussions, especially as tigers have fairly low population growth rates compared to other big cats. Analysis of mortality data in Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve indicates that poaching rates may be at least this high in a significant area of Russian tiger range.
Tigers are most commonly poached for their fur and for their body parts, such as bones, that are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The opening of the border between China and Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union has now made it possible to easily transport goods to Chinese markets and beyond. Although tigers are a protected species in Russia, enforcement agencies have very limited ability to catch convict poachers, and, even when this happens, fines are relatively small and disincentives insufficient. Poaching problems are further exacerbated by low incomes in many rural areas of the Russian Far East – sale of a tiger skin and bones represents a substantial source of income for poor people in remote villages.
It is also common for hunters to poach tigers to eliminate competition for ungulates and for locals to kill tigers in retaliation for depredations on domestic animals such as dogs and cows.
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Habitat Loss
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In Russia, human population growth does not threaten habitat as it does in many other tiger-range countries. However, activities such as logging, grazing, various development projects and uncontrolled fires are all resulting in direct habitat loss in the Russian Far East. Habitat is increasingly being divided into isolated patches, particularly at the southern edge of Amur tiger range.
Logging takes place in most of Amur tiger habitat. Although existing guidelines for timber harvest are actually quite sufficient, significant illegal logging and overharvest still occur. Selective logging, rather than clear cutting, is most common in tiger habitat, and does not seriously impact the quality of the habitat, if access to the extensive road system is controlled (thereby limiting poaching).
Fires are another important form of habitat loss. Many local residents consider fires to be the main cause of loss of forest habitat in parts of Primorsky Krai, and Amur tigers avoid areas that have burned, as they provide neither adequate cover for hunting, nor the habitat needed for prey.
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Illegal Hunting of Ungulates
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Illegal hunting of ungulates such as deer and wild boar significantly reduce prey availability for tigers. While official estimates continue to report stable numbers of ungulates, many hunters and wildlife biologists believe that abundance of ungulates in the Russian Far East has decreased considerably over past 15 years. Analyses from WCS’s Amur Tiger Monitoring Program clearly demonstrate that ungulate numbers are often 2-3 times higher inside protected areas, which are nonetheless impacted by poaching, though to a lesser extent.
Low ungulate numbers also foster a sense of competition between hunters and tigers. When ungulates numbers are low, it is easy to blame tigers, even when the root cause of population declines is over-harvest by humans. When there is little prey available in the forest, tigers sometimes enter villages and prey on domestic animals, including dogs and livestock, which creates tiger-human conflict situations.
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Roads
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The number of roads in Amur tiger habitat is increasing steadily as logging activities and development push into even the most remote regions. Besides allowing greater access for poachers, roads increase tiger mortality from vehicle collision, and increase the probability of accidental encounters between tigers and people, leading to tigers being shot out of fear or opportunity.
Roads also provide poachers greater access to ungulate habitat, which reduces tiger prey abundance. Roads can be divided into two categories: primary roads, which are maintained year-round and provide access between villages and towns; and secondary roads, which are not regularly maintained but nonetheless allow access.
From 1992 to 2000 the Wildlife Conservation Society studied the fates of radio-collared Siberian tigers living in areas with no roads, secondary roads and primary roads. Our findings:
100% survival rate for adult tigers living in areas with no roads
89% survival rate for adult tigers living in areas with secondary roads
55% survival rate for adult tigers living in areas with primary roads
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These results clearly demonstrate that the presence of both secondary and primary roads both greatly increase the odds of tigers being poached, and indicate the need for road closures and access control. (Ed. Main roads contribute to tiger road kill reducing tiger populations by about a half).
The number of tigers in the world has diminished at an alarming speed in recent years, global conservation group WWF cautioned on Wednesday, blaming poaching for much of the decline. “We are left with roughly 3,500 tigers (2008) all around the world now,” Bivash Pandav, a tiger specialist at the World Wildlife Fund, said, pointing out that “five years back, the estimate was around 5,500 to 6,000.” [Ed: In 2010 total world population was 3,200, and in 2011?, 2012?]
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In India, which is home to nearly half of the world’s tigers, or 1,400 animals,
the number of the big cats has shrunk by 60% over the past three to four years!
…Pandav said during a visit to Sweden.
A century ago, some 40,000 tigers roamed the Indian subcontinent, according to the WWF, which singles out poaching, widespread destruction of the tigers’ natural habitat and human hunting of their prey as the main causes of today’s dire situation.
“Poaching is primarily to meet the demand for tiger bones in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)… That’s the immediate reason behind the decline of tigers,” Pandav explained.
“The situation is pretty bad in the sense that they (the tigers) are rapidly being wiped out from many parts of their range,” he added.
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According to the WWF:
On the Chinese market, a dead tiger can be worth “tens of thousands of dollars”
The United States is the world’s second largest market for tiger products.
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Despite the daunting challenge of preserving tiger populations, Pandav insisted that “there is definitely hope,” pointing out that big cats “are prolific breeders (and) produce large numbers of offspring.”
“Despite all the problems, there are a couple of places in India (where tigers) are doing pretty well,” he said.
To rectify the overall situation however, the animals need access to forests, food and undisturbed habitats, Pandav said, insisting that the main priority was to protect the tigers from poachers and put “pressure on China to stop the farming of tigers.”
“The Chinese government is actively planning to legalise the trade (of tiger products) and if they legalise this trade then the demand for wild tigers is going to increase many fold,” he said, pointing out that people preferred products from wild tigers over farmed animals. That is going to be the death blow for the tigers in the wild,” he said.
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‘At the beginning of this year, a ground-breaking, new, and scientific tiger census, which took two years to complete, announced that there were 1,411 wild tigers left in India. By November, the Government had admitted that of that number, 14 tigers had been poached this year. The figure actually may be nearly double.
The poaching cases registered and seizures of body parts of tigers this year show that around 27 of the big cats have been killed in 2008, making the number of wild tigers in India less than even 1,400, and showing that government efforts have failed so far to deter poachers.
“On an average, 25 tigers are poached every year”
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…says an official from the NTCA. Data compiled by the WPSI shows an equal number, 27 tigers, were killed in 2007.
In January, a tiger survey commissioned by the Government indicated that there were only five-seven tigers left in Panna. Now, tiger experts fear the number may actually be just two. Kanha, also in Madhya Pradesh, lost a tiger to poaching by electrocution, using an 11,000-volt current, this November.
According to data compiled by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), there have been 27 instances of tiger skins and parts being found in different parts of the country in 2008. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), which came into existence this year, recovered a tiger skeleton from Gurgaon and two tiger skins from Himachal Pradesh, a case that involved a Tibetan national.
“Tiger killing may be higher than what recorded numbers tell us,” admits National Tiger Conservation Authority Member Secretary Rajesh Gopal. “Poachers are very clandestine and at times even a tiger carcass may not be found.”
A WCCB official said their main problem was that the trade in tiger parts was trans-country and inter-state, necessitating strong intervention from the Centre.
“Day before, we managed to get a case registered in Bihar for Dariya, a tiger poacher, who was arrested in December in Katni, Madhya Pradesh. A case had to be registered in Bihar where he is suspected to have poached tigers from the Valmiki tiger reserve. We have to expedite history-sheeting quickly to facilitate arrest of poachers who travel and escape extensively,” he added.
“The fact that tiger numbers are going down but poaching remains constant is a huge cause for concern. The number of tigers as per the Census is very low. If we don’t improve protection, India may well lose its tigers,” says Belinda Wright, Executive Director, WPSI.
The tiger census also shows another trend: that India’s tigers are now found only in areas with a high degree of protection, which is sanctuaries or existing tiger reserves. Recognising this, the NTCA has given approval to as many as 12 new tiger reserves this year, of which four — Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh), Sunabeda (Orissa), Rapa Pani (MP) and Sahyadri (Madhya Pradesh) — have got in-principle approval.’
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Videos on the plight of the Bengal Tiger
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Videos in 2010 on the Bengal Tiger by big cat expert Dr. Alan Rabinowitz i, hosted by the BBC on its Lost Land of the Tiger series.
Click the following link then scroll down to watch the four episode extracts:
The tiger is at the top of the food chain in all the ecosystems it lives in. If one species in a food chain becomes extinct there is a knock-on effect on other species. The loss of a main predator can actually cause the extinction of a prey species as greater competition presents a threat to a species.
When the Bali and Javan tigers became extinct in the 20th century, poachers turned their attention to the Sumatran tiger. Which animal will be exploited into extinction once all the tigers are gone?
If tigers were to go, the forests which are currently protected as key habitat would be more likely to fall victim to illegal logging, conversion to agriculture and development. This leads to greater CO2 emissions and climate change. Deforestation currently accounts for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Which species live alongside the tiger? Many of the species which could be affected by the disappearance of tigers are also endangered and already fighting for their own survival. The 5 sub-species of tigers live in some of the most spectacular parts of the world which provide a home for some other amazing species, including:
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A herd of Siberian tigers chased and devoured live chicken flung at them from a tourist safari bus at the Siberian Tiger Forest Park in Harbin, north-west China, on Tuesday.
Siberian Tigers Grab at Live Chickens Tossed at Them to Tourists’ Delight in China
20111227 (two days ago)
Photo by Sheng Li
Mass murder is considered possibly the worst crime that can be committed.
But there is a worse crime than mass murder and worse than war crime, and worse than crimes against humanity. Murder; extermination; torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice.
Even worse than crimes against humanity is the extreme extension of mass murder – genocide. Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”. What crime could possible be more evil than the willful targeting of an entire part of the human species in order to systematically wipe it out of existence? – such as what has been attempted upon the Jews, Armenians, Rwandan Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, Sri Lankan Tamils.
Armenian Genocide 1915
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“More inhumanity has been done by man himself than any other of nature’s causes.”
Yet still, there is a worse crime. It is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an entire species from the planet. In the same vein as genocide, is human-caused extinction or ‘speciescide‘, a relatively new concept. It is new concept because humans have only recently recognised species extinction as a problem. It is also a new concept because the global rate of non-human species extinction is increasing at an accelerating rate.
‘Speciescide‘ is a derived concept from the ecophilosophy of ‘speciesism‘ being a prejudice manifested as a widespread discrimination practised by humans against other species (Richard D. Ryder, 1973).
Yet deliberately causing a species to become regionally extinct, extinct in the wild or globally extinct, are not yet recognised as crimes legally. Human-caused extinction of a species is not yet a criminal offense.
Yet it is the most immoral crime that can be inflicted on the planet. Even if a nuclear holocaust wiped out 6 billion of the human species, there would still be one billion surviving from which to perpetuate the species. But wiping out an entire species is absolute, irreversible, extincting.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide establishes “genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish.”
It says that genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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Speciescide is a worse crime than described by the above definition of genocide and even worse than the previous “the deliberate and systematic destruction..” definition.
Speciescide is ecological genocide. It entails annihilating very member of a species until there is no surviving individual on the planet – the entire species becomes globally extinct. They will never be seen again on the planet. Speciescide is thus the worst hate crime possible. Speciescide is what Tasmanian colonists did to the Thylacene. It is what Traditional Chinese Medicine has just committed upon Africa’s Western Black Rhinoceros.
Africa’s Western black rhino has officially been declared extinct and other subspecies of rhinoceros could follow, according to the latest review by a leading conservation organization.
Western Black Rhino and her calf – never again on the planet
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the Northern white rhino in central Africa as “possibly extinct in the wild” and the Javan rhino as “probably extinct” in Vietnam.
The organization blamed a lack of political support for conservation efforts in many rhino habitats, international organized crime groups targeting the animal, increasing illegal demand for rhino horns and commercial poaching.
“In the case of both the Western black rhino and the Northern white rhino, the situation could have had very different results if the suggested conservation measures had been implemented,” Simon Stuart, chairman of IUCN’s Species
Survival Commission, said in a statement Thursday. “These measures must be strengthened now, specifically managing habitats in order to improve breeding performance, preventing other rhinos from fading into extinction.”
The last Javan rhino in Vietnam is believed to have been killed by poachers in 2010, reducing the species to a tiny, declining population in Java.
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The rhinos were among more than 61,900 animal and plant species reviewed for the IUCN’s latest Red List of Threatened Species. A quarter of the mammals on the Red List were found to be at risk of extinction. But the organization said there
have also been conservation successes. Fewer than 100 Southern white rhinos survived at the end of the 19th century, but the population in the wild is now believed to number over 20,000. Numerous other species are threatened, including many types of plants. The Chinese water fir, which used to be widespread throughout China and Vietnam, was listed as “critically endangered,” due primarily to expanding intensive agriculture. The IUCN also listed five out of eight tuna species as “threatened” or “near threatened,” and added 26 recently discovered amphibians to the Red List, including the blessed poison frog.
“This update offers both good and bad news on the status of many species around the world,” said Jane Smart, director of the IUCN Global Species Program. “We have the knowledge that conservation works if executed in a timely manner, yet, without strong political will in combination with targeted efforts and resources, the wonders of nature and the services it provides can be lost forever.”
Stumpy’s lifeless body, her life stolen by poachers
(Photo credit: Lewa Wildlife Conservancy)
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‘Stumpy was the oldest female black rhino at the Conservancy, and had spent 26 years enjoying her freedom on the property. Her eighth calf, only a year and a half old, was dealt a minor wound to the neck in the incident and will survive. Coincidentally, on the day Stumpy drew her last breath, a first breath was taken by a newborn rhino at the rhino refuge.’.
[Source: ^http://bushwarriors.wordpress.com/tag/rhino-horn-trade/page/6/]
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‘DEAD MEN DON’T DEAL’ Campaign
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Rhinos have been slaughtered to near extinction to satisfy the demand of rhino horn products in China and Vietnam. All based on rhino horn cultural myths. It has the same effect as chewing ones fingernails.
China is costing the world its rhinos.
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It is seen as a remedy for nearly everything (evil possession included) in China and Vietnam
China and Vietnam fund international organized poaching teams to kill rhino.
Science proves there is no medicinal value about rhino horn.
Rhino is said to be the most endangered species to date.
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However, even if Chinese trade makers are aware that the Rhino population is on near brink to extinction; the continual demand for rhino horn persists.
Unless a serious measure evolves, Chinese businessmen will not stop.
(Ed: This is speciescide)
So, the idea sprung to mind to form a campaign that will create a cultural scare. Namely, the DEAD MEN DON’T DEAL campaign that revolves around the sudden deaths of dealers. Without knowing who or how these smugglers are tortured it will create a cultural scare amoungst those who are guilty. The idea derives from laying revenge out into the air. The revenge of the rhino. Getting back at those who took away a lot of the rhino population. The main objective here is to create fear for those who are involved in the illegal dealing of rhino horn.
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Dehorning
The demand for Rhino has become so high that conservation officials have gotten to the point where they actually saw off their horns so rhino poachers will have no cause to kill them. These desperate measures have raised questions if removing Rhino horn impairs the rhino’s ability to survive or reproduce; one usage of the horn is to defend a mother’s young from predators.
Many parks and game reserved have battled the on going poaching around this endangered specie. Dr David Mabunda- Chief executive of SANParks stated that it is no longer appropriate to refer to this illegal action as poaching anymore as the levels of sophistication, violence and money behind it continue to raise. He also stated that the country has been working hard to bring this nearly extinct specie back, even if it requires one to become the last standing man.
Endangered stats continue to rise as reports keep coming in. In January an epidemic occurred where poachers were found using aircraft to hunt down rhino in Harare-Zimbabwe, as demand in Asia was great due to medicinal benefit growth. 7 endangered rhinos were killed, this representing one third of 22 rhinos poached throughout 2010. South Africa has about 1000 surviving rhino’s n which extra help for their existence has been sent, last year 333 rhinos were poached in South Africa nearly three times as many then 2009. However, 2011 proves to have lowered the killings. South Africa has over 21 000 more rhinos then any country in the world which puts the country as well as the animals in greater danger.
Demands in Vietnam have been noticed to increase. The black market offers huge amounts of money for trading these species for Traditional Chinese Medicine such as high blood pressure and other impairments. Experts state that as little as 5 rhinos remain in Vietnam. South Africa has become internationally known for banning rhino horn distribution.
World efforts to ‘demystify’ the medicinal affects of rhino horn fail to reach Asia and thus the uproar continues.
“For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. The Cro-Magnon who slew the last mammoth thought only of steaks. The sportsman who shot the last passenger pigeon thought only of his prowess. The sailor who clubbed the last auck thought of nothing at all. But we, who have lost our pigeons, mourn the loss. Had the funeral been ours, the pigeons would hardly have mourned us. In this fact, rather than in Mr. DuPont’s nylons or Mr. Vannevar Bush’s bombs, lies objective evidence of our superiority over the beasts.”
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~ Aldo Leopold: ‘A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There‘, 1948, Oxford University Press, New York, 1987, pp. 109-110.
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Further Reading:
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[1] Book: ‘ Tiger Bone and Rhino Horn: The Destruction of Wildlife for Traditional Chinese Medicine‘
by Richard Ellis
Format: Hardcover, 294 pages, Revised and Tea Edition
Release Date: 27 May 2005
‘In parts of Korea and China, moon bears, black but for the crescent-shaped patch of white on their chests, are captured in the wild and imprisoned in squeeze cages, where steel catheters drain their bile as a cure for ailments ranging from upset stomach to skin burns. Rhinos are being illegally poached for their horns, as are tigers for their bones, thought to improve virility. Booming economies and growing wealth in parts of Asia are increasing demand for these precious medicinals while already endangered species are being sacrificed for temporary treatments for nausea and erectile dysfunction. Richard Ellis, one of the world’s foremost experts in wildlife extinction, brings his alarm to the pages of “Tiger Bone & Rhino Horn”, in the hope that through an exposure of this drug trade, something can be done to save the animals most direly threatened. Trade in animal parts for traditional Chinese medicine is a leading cause of species endangerment in Asia, and poaching is increasing at an alarming rate. Although most of traditional Chinese medicine is not a cause for concern because it relies on herbs and other plants, as wildlife habitats are shrinking for the hunted large species, the situation is becoming ever more critical. Ellis tells us what has been done successfully, and contemplates what can and must be done to save these rare animals from extinction.’.
The magnificent tiger in the wild, where it belongs, free, protected from humanity, protected from human persecution, protected from backward superstition.A big ask of a pathogenic backward species ~ homo ‘sapiens’?
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“I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man”
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“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.”
~Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)
By this measure, Indonesian society’s prescription and tolerance of Dhabiha throat slitting slaughter in its abattoirs reflects a society that is barbaric, immoral, uncivilized and backward.
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Then we have the backward cultural practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM):
‘An American diplomat posed as a Korean tourist to investigate a notorious tiger breeding centre in southern China, where he saw animals whipped, made to perform ”marriage processions” and reportedly sold to be used in traditional medicines.As a result of the undercover visit to Xiongsen Tiger and Bear farm, the US government was notified of doubts about China’s conservation efforts, according to a diplomatic cable recently released by WikiLeaks.
Xiongsen Tiger – a pitiful end
The investigation was inspired by a flurry of foreign media reports in 2007 alleging the farm offered tiger meat in its restaurant and tiger bone wine in a shop.
In a cable sent from the Guangzhou US consulate headed ”Devouring Dragon, Disappearing Tigers”, an un-named economics officer said he was initially treated with suspicion by the sales personnel in the facility. But once he convinced them he was Korean, they became eager to do business.
”The staff stated that up to three tour groups of Koreans came a day, numbering more than 30 in each group.The Koreans were among the most enthusiastic purchasers of both the black bear bile and the tiger wine.” The price of the bottles ranged from 80-896 yuan ($12-$134).
Tiger Parts used by in barbaric chinese superstition (TCM)
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China says it has nearly 6000 tigers in captivity, but only 50 to 60 are left in the wild. In the 1980s, China set up tiger farms to try to preserve the big cats. But conservationists have criticised the farms, accusing them of seeking primarily to produce tiger parts, which some Asians regard as aphrodisiacs.
Packaged Traditional Chinese ‘Medicine’
[About as effective as eating garden snails]
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The visitor to the farm – which has more than 1000 tigers in its cages – described the spectacle of a tiger killing an ox in a ”training cage” purportedly set aside as a training area for animals that are to be introduced to the wild. But most of the animals appeared tame and some were used in circus-like entertainment shows, where they were beaten. Black bears – kept for their bile – were also made to join a mock Chinese marriage procession where they acted as bride and groom, he wrote.
Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Mountain Village
(a backward cruel colosseum for human hedonistic animal sadism)
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Locals told him that the farm served tiger meat and sold tiger skin, but this was denied by staff.
Nonetheless, he concludes in the cable dated July 12, 2007, that:
”The commercial nature of the farm was troubling. The large number of endangered tigers and bears present with no current plans to reintroduce them into the wild raises concern regarding the motivation of such a farm.”
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Four years later, these concerns remain valid. Reports earlier this year suggest the tiger population of the farm has grown.’
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A threatened and persecuted species by backward human cultures,reduced to the mercy of civilized humanity’s compassion and whim.
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Gong Xi Fa Cai
[Chinese Year of the Tiger ~ a harbinger of mass slaughter]
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2010 was the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Tiger
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Footnote
Rare photo of a Caspian Tiger
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Until the 19th century, Caspian tigers still inhabited wide spaces of Western and Central Asia. In the mid-19th century, Caspian tigers were killed 180 km northeast of Atbasar, Kazakhstan and as far North as near Barnaul, Russia.
The only reported Caspian tiger from Iraq was killed near Mosul in 1887. In 1899, the last Caspian tiger near the Lop Nur basin in Xinjiang, China, was killed. Caspian tigers disappeared from the Tarim River basin in Xinjiang, China, by the 1920s.
The last record of the Caspian tiger on the Ili River, their last stronghold in the region of Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan, dates to 1948.
Caspian Tigers now are extinct. They only exist in illustration.
International Wildlife Photography Exhibition 2010
Winning Wildlife Photograph for 2010, by Tom Schandy
Concurrently on exhibition at both the National History Museum in London and at the Australian Museum in Sydney is a brilliant display of wildlife photography, that recognises the Wildlife Photographer of the Year under a number of international awards.
On exhibition is not only the winning wildlife photographs but also those of the runners-up and the highly commended photographic entries. Entries have also been grouped into age groups so that children and young adults of differing age bracket categories also have their own competition award. This provides an excellent incentive for young people to take a special interest in wildlife and wildlife photography, for it is in our young peopke that the future of wildlife species will be utterly dependent to survive extinction.
The Editor had the opportunity to visit the exhibition held at the Australian Museum in Sydney yesterday and although this current exhibition is all but over, a visit by everyone should be an annual event. The experience is beautiful, inspiring, educational if not a touch sad when realising many of these photos may be of future extinctions. That they are in a museum is a wake up call to humanity and its morality.
Wildlife photography, the wildlife photography awards and the public exhibition of the entrants in each year’s competition contribute vitally in raising mainstream awareness of the plight of threatened wildlife, of poaching, the destruction of their habitats and the increasing risks of wildlife extinctions.
‘Audience Type: General
Event Type: Special exhibition
Opens: 24 December 2009
Closes: 26 April 2010
Location: Level G, Special Exhibition Space
Experience the power, mystique and beauty of nature. See more than 90 dramatic images, from big cats fighting to silent icy landscapes, all in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 exhibition.
With over 43,000 competition entries from 94 countries across the globe, this is a selection of the most powerful images capturing wildlife and nature. Photography categories include:
Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife
One Earth
Animals in Their Environment
Behaviour: Birds
Behaviour: Mammals
Behaviour: All Other animals
The Underwater World
Animal Portraits
Urban and Garden Wildlife
Creative Visions of Nature
In Praise of Plants
Nature in Black and White
Wild Place
10 years and under
11-14 years
15-17 years.’
Exhibition Owned jointly by:
Exhibition Patron:
Exhibition Sponsor:
Major Sponsor:
Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife
‘This award commemorates the late Gerald Durrell’s work with endangered species and his long-standing involvement with the competition. The award is given to the most memorable image and that which captures the unique character or spirit of the subject. The species featured must be officially listed in the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as critically endangered or endangered, vulnerable or near threatened at an international or national level.’
Winner
Tom Schandy (Norway)‘The look of a jaguar’
In a small, protected area of swamp-forest in the western area of the Pantanal wetland, in Mato Grosso, Brazil, jaguars still roam free from human harassment. They’re notoriously difficult to see, and pawprints are as lucky as most people get. Along the riverbanks, though, it’s possible to spot them. When Tom took a boat down the Rio Paraguay, he saw four jaguars in three days. This male had picked a slightly concealed spot where he could watch for prey such as capybara. Tom observed him for an hour. ‘He was totally calm, even though he was aware of us.’ At sunset, the jaguar rose, yawned and scent-marked. Then he faded back into the dense forest. [Camera equipment used: Canon EOS-ID Mark III + 500mm f4 lens; 1/250 sec at f4; ISO 400; beanbag]
‘Not only are pygmy elephants critically endangered, but they also favour thick forest, which meant that Juan Carlos had his work cut out trying to find any. As he travelled by boat down the Kinabantangan River in Sabah, Borneo, the heavens opened. ‘It was so torrential,’ says Juan Carlos, ‘that I couldn’t decide what I was more worried about, the boat sinking as it filled up with rain or how to protect my camera gear.’ Suddenly the undergrowth parted and a male pygmy elephant looked out. Slowly munching on leaves, he serenely watched the ongoing boat chaos through the sheets of rain, giving Juan Carlos the chance to take his portrait before the elephant melted back into the forest. Pygmy elephants are found only on the island of Borneo and were classified as a subspecies of the Asian elephant in 2003. [Camera equipment used: Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II + Canon 100-400mm lens; 1/60 sec at f5; ISO 400.]
http://www.nhmshop.co.uk/veolia-environnement-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2009/elephant-onlooker/product.html
One Earth Award
‘This award highlights conservation issues or actions and the interaction between humans and the natural world. Images must demonstrate the power and resilience of our planet and its impact on us. Whether graphic or symbolic, each picture must be thought provoking, memorable and encourage respect or concern for our natural world.’
‘It was late afternoon when Thomas came upon this scene outside Forks, Washington, while documenting old-growth logging in the Pacific Northwest. Loggers had left a single Douglas fir standing in a clearcut area, perhaps to help reseed the area for future logging. ‘As I walked towards it on the muddy road, criss-crossed with the tracks of logging trucks, I saw the reflection in the puddle,’ says Thomas. ‘It was a powerful image, reminding me of the towering forest that once stood here,’ he says. This area has been logged before, so this tree is likely to have been planted as part of a mono-age crop, vastly different from the multilayered forests that once blanketed the region. ‘Clearcutting has long been a focal point of the environmental movement, and while it seems to be falling out of favour in North America, it’s still the preferred method around the world.’
‘Andy and his guide Dicky Singh followed the fresh pug marks down the track. When they caught up with the tiger, they discovered it was Machali, a female very familiar to Dicky. Indeed, she’s something of a local celebrity in Ranthambore National Park. It wasn’t long before jeep-loads of tourists drew up to admire her. The drivers kept a respectful distance, but Machali is well used to such attention from the wildlife paparazzi. It has been suggested that Machali has contributed about $10 million to the local economy. Andy believes that ‘if we are to save this wonderful cat, then it has to have an economic value to a local community, and that’s what I wanted to show with this picture.’ [Camera equipment used: Nikon D3 + Nikon 70-200mm lens; 1/250 sec at f5.6; ISO 800.]
Endangered Tiger
