(CN) Tiger Abuse

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Tiger Abuse in China Sparks Calls for Animal Rights

By Chengcheng Jiang / Beijing Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010

 

Tigers jump for a chicken tossed by a feeder on May 7, 2009, at a branch of the

Harbin Siberian Tigers Breeding Center in northeast China's Heilongjiang

province

 

It is an irony not lost on the Chinese public that the Year of the Tiger has

not been good for the big cats. On Tuesday, state media reported that dozens

of tigers and other endangered animals had died of malnutrition over the

past two years at the Northern Forest Zoo in the Chinese city of Harbin.

Workers, who later leaked the story to the media, buried their bodies in a

3-meter pit to hide the animals from authorities.

 

The report follows the news in March that 11 rare Siberian tigers had

starved to death within a few months at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo

in northeast China. The cases have shed light on the murky world of China's

12 tiger farms, which were initially set up by the state in the 1980s to

preserve the numbers of animals in existence. They have also underscored

changing attitudes toward animal rights in a country where exotic animals

have often been treasured less for their rarity and more for their medicinal

or culinary benefits. (See the top 10 animal stories of 2009.)

 

Traditional Chinese medical theories have long extolled the health benefits

of tonics and poultices made from rare animal parts, including everything

from bear bile to deer antlers. Among enthusiasts for this esoteric branch

of traditional medicine, few animals are more treasured for their nutritive

qualities than the tiger. Tiger bone wine - a rice alcohol brewed in a vat

with the carcass of one of the cats - is prized as a tonic for fatigue and

sexual potency, for example. In an effort to clamp down on the lucrative

poaching industry that sprung up around the big cats, sales of tiger parts

were banned in 1993.

 

But that edict closed off the primary revenue stream for the dozen tiger

farms nationwide. The Guilin Xiongsen Tigers and Bears Mountain Village in

southern Yunnan province had 400 tigers when the sales ban was enacted. In

hopes the ban would be temporary, the farm continued breeding and now has

1,500 tigers. Each tiger costs roughly $9 per day to feed, which equates to

nearly $5 million a year in costs for the park. The revenue the village

receives from visitors is far less than that. Some facilities have turned to

unusual schemes to generate extra income. At the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park,

visitors can pay about $6 to buy a live chicken tied to a stick, which they

then dangle over the side of a tiger pen, watching as the animals tear it to

pieces. A menu of sorts is available for tourists to choose from: about $120

gets you a live cow, which is then released into the pen with the tigers,

with predictable consequences. (See TIME's photo-essay " Afghan Tragedy:

Death of a Snow Leopard. " )

 

At the Shenyang and Harbin parks, however, budgets were apparently strained

to such an extent that animals simply weren't fed for weeks at a time. The

dire financial straits and gross neglect at the Shenyang site came to light

only when disgruntled workers - who hadn't been paid for months - contacted

the media.

 

The Chinese government has come under increasing pressure from owners of

tiger farms to relax the ban on trading tiger parts. So far the government

has resisted those efforts, a move that seems to be in keeping with shifting

public sentiment. The back-to-back tiger tragedies have been followed

closely in China, spurring calls for greater legal protections for animals.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have been drafting the country's first regulations on

animal abuse. The government is considering, among other things, a ban on

the consumption of dog and cat meat, a culinary specialty in southern China.

Under the proposed law, companies or restaurants that sell cat or dog meat

could face fines of up to $73,000. (See 10 species near extinction.)

 

" Harming animals hurts the spirit of the people, especially the younger

generation, " says Chang Jiwen, a professor of law at the Chinese Academy of

the Social Sciences and one of the key drivers of the legislation. " A ban on

abusing animals generally would illustrate that China has reached a new

level of civilization. "

 

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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1976699,00.html#ixzz0jtuP9art