New Indian Express, 17 May, 2009
The cat is slowly coming out of the bag. For long, the world suspected tacit official patronage of illegal tiger farms in China even after Beijing was forced to ban trade in tiger parts in 1993. Then, before the last meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 2008, Chinese officials unsuccessfully argued how the ban had cost their economy $4 billion and that captive-bred tigers could sustain the trade and also replenish the wild stock.The farming lobby claims that providing a low-priced supply of tiger parts to customers will reduce the profit margins of poachers, making killing of wild tigers unviable. So their solution for saving tigers from extinction is to breed them commercially in farms as we currently breed chicken or cattle. This concept has many takers in the US, the only country with a pet tiger population larger than China’s. But this lobby also needs some support in India, the country with more than half of the world’s remaining wild tigers, and the campaign is gaining momentum.
First it was Barun Mitra, head of Liberty Institute who “visited China as a guest of the government to learn about tiger conservation”. Then it was Jaithirth Rao, India’s leading banker-turned-entrepreneur-turned-columnist. And now it is John Stossel, America’s star consumer reporter who anchors the highly popular 20/20 show. Between them, they have occupied prime news space on some top media organisations — New York Times, India Today, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times and, of course, ABC News.
But for all that, sample this. To name only two reporters, Danny Penman (Daily Mail) and Simon Parry (PostMagazine) documented last year how the Xiongsen Park in Guilin, China, was farming tigers in hundreds — each squeezed in like a battery hen — so that they could be eaten or turned into wine.
While Penman mentioned 140 tigers in the freezer to be served up on a menu as strips of stir-fried tiger with ginger and vegetables or tiger soup or spicy red curry made with tender tiger strips, Parry recalls the park’s sales manager Xhao Runghui ruing how he could not advertise tiger wine in Beijing because the Olympics were coming up.
However gruesome the idea of consuming tiger meat or wine may sound, it is not the reason why tiger farming is a remarkably dumb idea. Ethics or values aside, tiger farming simply does not make any economic or ecological sense.
First, farming only makes poaching more rewarding. Anyone who has an idea of a tiger’s daily consumption would know how much it costs to rear a tiger in captivity before it becomes “marketable”. If it must bring a reasonable margin in the market, it cannot be low-priced. Wild tigers virtually come for free and mean “total profit” to poachers. So in an open market, a poacher’s incentives would actually be greater as there would be no way to distinguish the bones of ‘farmed’ tigers from those of wild tigers.
Second, the argument that tigers — like chicken or sheep — will never go extinct if we farm them for consumption is misleading. Conservation is not just about saving tigers from going extinct but saving the tigers in the wild. Otherwise, we already have enough tigers in the zoos to secure live specimens for many generations to come.
The challenge before us is to save the tiger in the wild, so that with the tiger flourishing at the top of the food chain, everything down the pyramid flourishes. If the pyramid is alive, so will be the forests around it and the water systems that are sustained by such forests.
The farming lobby often cites the example of crocodiles having become successful commercial animals with an estimated two million harvested each year in Australia, South Africa and the US. But crocodiles are found in 91 countries and there are 23 surviving species. For each tiger in the wild, there were always hundreds of crocodiles. However, commercial success cannot save an endangered species in the wild. The Chinese themselves could do precious little about their highly endangered alligators. Despite repeated attempts at captive breeding and release since 1979, to quote Xinhua, there are just about 150 Chinese alligators left in the wild.
And, finally, what about China’s own tiger experience? Their tiger farms have been trading legally for years (with implicit official support since 1993). Today, China has thousands of tigers in cages but less than 50 survive poaching in the wild.
Unfortunately, reintroduction of captive-bred or farmed tigers in the wild has never succeeded. No wonder even the Chinese plan to reintroduce tigers bred in a South African zoo in its forests is yet to take off.
So then, how do we save the tiger? Well, to borrow a phrase from the farming lobby, by generating strong incentives. But for that we need not domesticate and kill tigers. We have to integrate efficient protection and practical management plans with popular participation.
As a rule, we have to involve the locals — not only for menial jobs — but also in protection work and responsible tourism. Protected well, our wilderness will not only ensure our food and water security but also sustain a multi-billion dollar tourism industry. If alive in the wild, the tiger will remain the ultimate mascot of that economy.
The writer is an independent journalist and filmmaker. mazoomdaar@gmail.com
