(IN): NDTV China's tiger trade raises concern

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Link: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070009426

 

China's tiger trade raises concern

 

Swati Thiyagarajan

Saturday, April 21, 2007 (New Delhi)

The global tiger forum meet at the International Tiger Symposium in

Nepal this week and declared that poaching is the greatest threat for

the animal in the wild.

 

Members from all the tiger range states and international NGos agreed

that the tiger faced its greatest threat.

 

If millionaire tiger farm owners in China get their way one can be

drinking bottles of tiger bone wine and on the bottle the ingredient

listed is panthera leo or lion.

 

In other undercover footage there are reports it is tiger bone and

pulls the bones out of the vat.

 

The world's largest feline predator is being bred like chicken for

slaughter.

 

If China lifts its domestic ban on trade in tiger parts not only will

all the tigers end up in wine vats and dinner plates but wild tigers too.

 

Population crashed

 

The international community appealed to China to not lift their ban at

the recently concluded International Tiger Symposium.

 

China put the ban in place in 1993 when tiger populations crashed

around the world from poaching to feed a voracious Chinese demand.

 

It even took tiger bones of the official list of ingredients in

traditional Chinese medicines.

 

Today, TCM is mostly free of tiger bones and say there are better

alternatives but now the Chinese government is being strongly

petitioned by some already wealthy business men to lift the ban.

 

''After we put ban in place we incurred loss of $2 billion and now

there are some strong petitions to change things,'' said Wang

Weishing, Chinese Govt Official.

 

A tiger farmer even came for the symposium with the Chinese delegation

indicating how serious China is about lifting the ban.

 

The British crew that exposed the farms were attacked by the same farm

owner at the tiger conference when he was confronted as the meat

tested positive as tiger after a DNA test.

 

Domestic ban

 

China says lifting the domestic ban will help save wild tigers, a

claim that has been rubbished by conservationists.

 

China lifted the ban on bear bile 15 years ago and that has caused a

near extinction of Russia's black bears in the wild.

 

It is a clear indication that use of captive bred animals only

encourages poaching of their wild counterparts as it establishes a

firm market.

 

In less than 50 years China has reduced its own wild tiger population

from 5000 to 50. The wild tigers of the world cannot afford a similar

fate.

 

One issue dominated proceedings and that was China's bid to open

domestic trade in tigers parts from captive bred tigers.

 

Most conservationists believe that if China opens up their domestic

trade, wild tigers will be in greater danger.