Tiger conservation

[Guest guest]

Cory Meacham, a San Diego writer, was on that trip to China with

Kristen and he wrote about it on his blog, The Bare Bodkin.

http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/thebarebodkin/.

Here's what he wrote about the trip:

 

I was in China from the 4th of this month through the 11th, advising

the government there on issues related to tiger conservation, at

their request. Why has that been so hard to say until now? Several

reasons, and it's not all that easy to say even now due to persistent

concerns I have about jinxing a plan that could benefit wild tigers

and about subjecting China to unjustified ridicule from conservation

groups still suffering from sinophobia. (The Bodkin might be small,

but it is indeed public.). Please consider:

 

In 1993, China installed a ban on the domestic trade of anything

derived from a tiger. Before then, the Chinese could legally buy and

sell tiger pelts, claws, teeth, bones… everything, so long as it came

from a domestic source that was not poached. (International trade has

been banned since the country signed on to a UN treaty prohibiting

same in 1981.) So buy and sell they did, especially for Traditional

— " TCM " — in which tiger derivatives figure

prominently. Since the ban, TCM practitioners and patients have done

without tiger medicine — except for those who've been willing to

indulge in the black market, of whom there are plenty, but crooks are

crooks everywhere and they all need to be prosecuted; let's focus on

honest people. The implementation of the ban also meant facilities

that were breeding tigers in China to supply the domestic trade were

converted by mandate into less profitable exhibition-only facilities

unless they too were willing to indulge in the black market. In other

words, legitimate breeding facilities became tiger " parks " instead of

tiger farms. (Remember that term? We've discussed it several times

already here on the Bodkin, beginning with " The F Word. " )

 

China is now considering lifting the domestic ban as a consequence of

pressure from the TCM community and from operators of the tiger

parks. That much makes sense, at least in terms of causes and

effects, but it remains to be explained why China would choose to

invite outsiders to come have a look-see while they're in the process

of reconsidering the ban — an invitation they were by no means

obliged to extend since the ban is a domestic issue. China knows all

too well that its external image is dreadful when it comes to

conservation, and when the issue is tiger farming (which is what

lifting the ban will restore), well, inviting foreign scrutiny seems

like the strategic equivalent of inviting a nosy neighbor who gossips

to house sit for you.

 

Nevertheless, the invitation arrived about a month ago, accompanied

by so few details it seemed quite clear China knew the risk it was

taking. Very few other details came forth before I and the three

other people who accepted the invitation stepped off our respective

inbound flights. (Full disclosure: We were not paid for our time, but

all our expenses were covered — an essential component of the trip,

since none of the four of us are yet sponsored by anyone for our

efforts on behalf of tigers.) Our roles were not defined, the agenda

was skeletal, and while we at least managed to learn one another's

names before arriving we still don't have a complete list of who else

was invited but declined, which roundup is especially coveted for the

motivations and fears it would expose. I was not even able to

ascertain in advance how my name had been floated for consideration,

so naturally I flattered myself by assuming all China had read my

book and was hanging on every feline word posted here on the Bodkin.

Ha! Only one of my three colleagues had ever even heard of me a month

ago. All this preliminary vagueness accounts for why I've been

reluctant to speak plainly until now.

 

With respect to speaking plainly: " Gobsmacked! " That's the term one

of my three co-invitees used to express his reaction to what we

witnessed in China, and I can't think of a better one. (It's British

slang, meaning to be utterly astonished or amazed.) I've been to

China before in connection with tiger conservation, but back then I

was conducting research for my book and relying almost exclusively on

what I'd learned from other outsiders. Since then I've become acutely

aware of the depth of prejudice western conservationists hold toward

China and the degree to which that prejudice and its attendant

ignorance colors what they say and write. Having now been to China on

a level PR playing field, I understand why the invitation was issued:

China is proud of what it's done, what it's doing, and what it's

planning with respect to tiger conservation, and they're confident —

or at least hopeful — that rational conservationists will agree. The

four of us who accepted the invitation are at least rational enough

to know things need to be seen first-hand before valid judgments can

be passed. Here's what we saw:

 

We were ushered to and through two tiger parks, one north, one south,

both infamous among tiger conservationists for reasons referenced

below. Before, after, and during those visits, we were presented to

assembly after assembly of representatives from groups either

responsible for or impacted by the domestic ban on tiger trade — park

operators, local and regional politicos, wildlife management

agencies, law-enforcement squads, educational establishments, and of

course many emissaries from the TCM community. Our escorts and

organizers comprised a contingent from the State Forestry

Administration, the governmental agency responsible for tigers in

China (pretty much; you don't even want to begin to try to understand

the lines of authority over there). From start to finish, our

foursome was not only treated like, but referred to directly both in

print and speech as, " international

advisors, " " experts, " " observers, " " delegates, " " inspectors, " " consult

ants, " and even " VIPs, " titles that are sure to make certain people

around the world laugh, choke, scream, sneer, barf, yawn, or sweat

depending on how much they think they know about tiger conservation

in China. Banners heralded our arrivals, banquets hosted by local

officials and dignitaries took place in our honor, and on one

occasion our advent was accompanied by stand-up applause. Cameras

were focused on us continuously, and we even found ourselves in a

motorcade ushered fore and aft by police cars with lights flashing

and sirens blaring.

 

My. We were of course being buttered up, trotted out, and carefully

guided, just as all foreign contingents everywhere are buttered up,

trotted out, and carefully guided when sensitive judgments hang in

the balance and especially when the host nation respects social

protocol and issues of " face " as deeply as China does. None of that

worries me (though I do hope the pictures appear in at least some

sense of legitimate context).

 

What worries me is the lack of time we were granted to ask questions

and listen to answers. Every meeting began, as protocol there

dictates, with a plenary statement by the official in charge of that

session and then continued through subordinate iterations until but a

few precious minutes remained before the obligatory banquet began or

the tour of whatever facility we were visiting commenced or the next

travel connection loomed. The compression was logistical, not

intentional, I am convinced; we didn't feel censored, just rushed. In

any case, the few questions I and my colleagues were able to blurt

had to be translated in both directions, of course, thereby dividing

already short intervals by two. (I speak Mandarin, but none of my

three colleagues do, and mine is not sufficiently fluent for such

high-level purposes anyway.) Planes, automobiles, and even a boat

offered a bit of additional opportunity for inquiry, but only so much

as could be hustled up between connections, only when translators

were present, and never when everyone necessary for a complete answer

was in the same place at the same time. Our itinerary started each

day before 8:00 in the morning and did not let up until long after

dark when everyone was ragged, stuffed, tipsy, or already dozing. The

results are a mishmash of notes, some written, others merely

memorized, that have yet to be correlated or confirmed among the four

of us. Furthermore, in many cases the sheer eagerness of our inquires

pushed our subjects back in their seats with apprehension. For all

their new awareness of western processes, the Chinese remain much

better at show and tell than they are at Q & A. By the end of our visit

we learned that reports are expected, or at least hoped for, from

each of us. Producing those will go a long way toward synthesizing

what we learned (or at least what we think we learned) and revealing

what we did not. But that's going to be an arduous, intricate task.

In the meantime, I feel safe in making the following observations.

 

Whether you or I have any faith in the effectiveness of tiger-laden

TCM makes no difference; a billion Chinese, give or take, do have

faith in it, so the demand for tiger TCM is there, period. (And lest

we get too medically uppity over here in the west, let's not forget

that the FDA recently approved a new diabetes drug that's extracted

from the saliva of the gila monster….) Those of you who live under

the fantasy that TCM is going away any time soon must relent: My

colleagues and I visited a single clinic in Beijing where many

thousands of TCM prescriptions are filled every day, and there are at

least five clinics of that size in Beijing alone, not to mention the

myriad smaller ones. Those of you stuck on the image of TCM being

produced in back-alley stalls by crotchety apothecaries must fast-

forward: That clinic hummed and the TCM factory we visited thereafter

glistened with clean-room technology. TCM isn't going away; it's

exploding.

 

Then, the tiger parks — or, let's go ahead and call them what they

really want to be: tiger farms. Since 1993, they've been losing money

because one of their primary revenue streams came from sales of dead

tigers into the TCM market. Big deal, you say, and I agree. I wasn't

there to coddle unhappy businessmen, especially when they're keeping

tigers in deplorable conditions and hovering over them with knives

just waiting to slit their worthless animal throats — oh, but, oops,

wait… they're not. That's what you've been led to believe by people

with interests more personal than conservational. It simply is not

true, at least not at either of the two farms we visited, and both

have been portrayed time and time again by western activists as

horror shows of animal abuse. I can't speak for how things might have

been in the past, but I'm here to tell you the two farms we visited

in China earlier this month rival the San Diego Zoo in terms of how

their tigers are treated. I've now been backstage at all three, seen

them with my own eyes, smelled them with my own nose, and touched

them with my own hands. The tigers now housed in at least two

legitimate tiger-breeding facilities in China, a thousand or so of

whom I've just been up close and personal with, are happy cats. I

understand if you don't like the thought of keeping tigers in

captivity of any kind, and I welcome you to continue your fight; just

don't confuse what you're doing with tiger conservation. For those of

you worried that tigers in tiger farms in China are being abused,

take heart; I can report that at least two of them — two of the most

notorious tiger farms anywhere — no longer deserve to be any more

notorious than any zoo or wild animal park in North America. And for

those of you who, like me, just can't stomach the thought of raising

up tigers for slaughter no matter what the reason, here's the mind-

blowing, jaw-dropping, would-you-repeat-that-please detail nobody has

had the presence of mind to ask about until last week: None of the

tiger farmers we met in China has plans to kill tigers, and they even

looked a bit confused when we brought up such plans. Their plan is to

breed up enough tigers to satisfy the demand for tiger parts with the

bodies of tigers that die naturally. That's right, no slaughter. (And

as you consider that, please remember zoos all over the world outside

of China still euthanize tigers they no longer need.) Indeed, those

farmers have been letting their tigers die naturally since 1993 and

they've been stockpiling the cadavers in walk-in freezers, awaiting

the day the ban might be lifted. Those stockpiles have been

tantalizing the TCM community for more than a decade now.

 

Is that just waaaaaay too pretty a picture for you to believe? Good.

You are right and wise to remain out with the jury, as I do, because

China still has a couple of enormous blind spots and a some very big

problems with their tiger-farming plans. I'm going to be spending the

next week or so working those issues into my report back to them,

because in my opinion what they are on the verge of doing is going to

spell either the doom or the salvation of the wild tiger. And that,

ultimately, is what this is all about.