WWF states position on proposal for captive breeding tigers

[Guest guest]

*Explore options to breed tigers in the wild, ministry told *

* Vibha Sharma/Tribune News Service*

 

New Delhi, May 2

Tigers bred in captivity may look and behave differently from their kith and

kin in the wild but the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has now told

the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to explore the possibility of

breeding big cats and reintroducing them in the wild.

 

India has 60 per cent of its tigers living in wild forests. Officially there

are 1,411 tigers living in wild in India, experts though believe the number

to be as few as 1000. In the neighbouring China, tigers are bred in

captivity and India has a reason to believe that this has increased the

demand for wild tiger parts since their body parts are preferred to that of

farm-bred big cats. In fact India wants China to “disband” such farms since

it will always be far more profitable to poach a tiger in the wild than to

raise it on a farm.

 

However, in its report on conservation and protection of tigers in reserves

the committee notes that unlike China, the US, France and Russia, where

tigers are bred in captivity, there is no such captive breeding of tigers in

the country. In the light of fast dwindling numbers of big cats in the

country, it wants the NTCA (National Tiger Conservation Authority) to

explore the possibility.

 

“Notwithstanding the differences in the characteristics of the tigers that

are bred in captivity and that are born in the wild, the committee is of the

considered view that in light of the fast dwindling tiger population in

reserves, the NTCA may explore launching a National Tiger Breeding Programme

and introduce these in designated habitats,” the committee headed by BJP

leader Gopinath Munde has recommended.

 

While underscoring the need to protect tigers in the wild, members had asked

the MoEF whether tigers could be bred in captivity and reintroduced in the

wild. In response, the MoEF secretary said there was a qualitative

difference between a tiger in the wild and the entire character of the

tiger.

 

The problem is a captive tiger is not able to predate because he is taught

by the mother and that can happen only in the wild. “Tigers bred in

captivity cannot be reintroduced in the wild for the want of the innate

predatory/stalking habits in such animals, leading to their elimination on

account of man-tiger conflicts,” the ministry felt. So, will tiger farming

increase tiger population in the wild - the answer as according to the WWF

is a big “No”. WWF says: “Captive breeding of tiger or tiger farming does

not help to increase tiger population in the wild. If this was true then

those countries indulging in tiger farming would boast a healthy population

of tigers in the wild and this hasn’t happened so far.”

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100503/nation.htm

 

 

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