Article: Tiger Farms in China Feed Thirst for Parts            By: Andre Jacobs for NY Times on February 12, 2010

            Both the Chinese and global market for exotic, medicinal goods have found new purveyors for tiger parts. The suppliers are the 20 tiger farms where tiger products are exported to consumers. Xiongsen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village in Guilin, China is one of the many farms where not only tigers, but bears and monkeys as well, are confined to concrete cages. These exotic creatures are not free to roam their indigenous habitats, nor are they allowed to satiate their wild, predatory instincts. Instead, they madly pace back and forth in their cages, deprived of nutritious and wholesome food, and left to succumb to untreated illnesses. The tigers are farmed for their skins, bones, flesh, and genitals, as they are believed to have medicinal properties. The 300 Asiatic brown bears located on the facilities of Xiongsen are farmed for their bile, which is said to improve eyesight and is “tapped” via plastic tubes that are implanted permanently in their stomachs. Capuchin monkeys share the same doom as the tigers, “as fodder for medicinal elixirs.” However, the monkeys are also sold to drug and pharmaceutical companies where they await unimaginable torture.

Xiongsen’s gift shop boasts a number of tiger products, such as tiger bone wine, which can fetch a hefty price of $132 and, up until recently, their restaurant sold tiger steaks under the title of “big king meat.” Xiongsen’s wines are so popular, it is said that high-ranking government officials often purchase and consume the product in large amounts.

Although China has agreed to aid in global efforts to rescue tigers from the brink of extinction, its support of tiger farms has spurred criticism from people across the globe. The country’s advocacy for the cultivation of tigers in farms will not solve the issue of poaching, since wild tiger parts are considered much more valuable in comparison to those of tigers in captivity. Debbie Banks, the woman in charge of operating the Environmental Investigation Agency, has said, “The [Chinese] government is stimulating and perpetuating demand [for tiger products], which is the real problem we’re facing.”

            The fact that human beings are capable of such grotesque acts of torture amazes me. The cultivation of domesticated animals, such as cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, is wholly comprehensible, but to go so far as to farm an exotic, majestic, predatory animal for its bones is disgusting. These creatures are made for the wilderness. They are powerful and lithe predators who are native to the forests of Asia, not to the concrete pens of a “farm.” These farms serve absolutely no purpose, but to provide for the never-ending wants of a morally corrupt society. The cultivation of tigers will not put an end to poaching, nor will it save the tiger. If people claim that tigers have a chance, a future, on this planet even though their wild counterparts are extinct, I will argue that a future of confinement in harsh conditions is no future at all.

Tigers serve a purpose in this world: to maintain equilibrium in the balance of their ecosystems. By hunting and consuming their prey, tigers balance out the population of their prey. However, human beings have been hunting down tigers’ only source of nourishment and ultimately destroying the balance that Mother Nature had so lovingly and meticulously tried to maintain. In order to save these beautiful animals we must treat them and their prey with the respect that they deserve instead of condemning them to a life of anguish and torment. They are powerful animals and although they do not possess the intelligence of man, they are beings that are to be feared and respected by us. It is against the laws of nature and life to subject animals to such degradation and obloquy. If we, as a race, do not learn to respect nature, then our world is truly damned.

Not only do I feel sympathy for the tigers, but the monkeys and bears as well. I cannot bear to imagine the anguish and suffering of the poor Asiatic bears. I cannot imagine having a tube implanted in my stomach, and then having my bile sucked through that tube regularly. I cannot believe that monkeys are forced to spend their days in an artificial, unforgiving environment and made to wait for their turn to either be killed for their bones or tortured with chemicals. How is it that humans are capable of such horrors?

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