medicinal tigers

May 11th, 2008 pianist

I was speaking to Tako from the institute of critical zoologists earlier this evening, and he told me that the concept of tiger farming reflects a unique situation of our present age. Not only are we living in an era where we, as a civilization, are not able to personally kill our chicken for poultry, but we are also selling our magnificent tigers in order to save it. The situation reflects closely to what is being done in Africa where wild life ranches are being set aside for hunters to kill wild game. The ranches are being set aside for hunting and at the same, preserve wildlife.

from http://www.criticalzoologists.org/projects/medicinal_tigers/medicine_tiger.html

“This proposal is based upon the premise that biodiversity is best preserved by commercialization. Medical farming may possibly be the most positive and widespread economic incentive for the conservation of tigers in Asia.

Maintaining a species survival will be more profitable as a sustainable resource, whether as a spectacle for tourists, coffee for Star Bucks free trade, ingredients for skin lotion, quarry for big-game hunters, or raw material for pharmaceutical firms. Our medicinal tiger farm model closely follows the wildlife ranches in Africa.

In Zimbabwe, to promote the conservation of the wildlife resources found on communal lands, private game reserves have been established where revenues from hunting are paid to local communities. Recreational hunting is now the most positive and widespread economical incentive for the conservation of large mammals in Zimbabwe.

Jeffrey A. McNeely, “Economic Incentives for Conserving Biodiversity:
Lessons for Africa,” Ambio 22 (1993): 147.

Since poachers have decimated the wild tiger population, commercial captive breeding of tigers appears to be smart resource management. Huge financial resources has been allocated for wild tiger preservation to date and the results has been disappointing.”

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tiger father, goat boy

September 18th, 2007 pianist

xiongsen bear and tiger mountain village

 

Brief introduction (as on the leaflet)

Bear & Tiger mountain village is located in Shateng Big Disc, Liangjiang Inte’ l Airport Rd, Guilin, which the landscape is the most beautiful in the world.
With 50o thousand square meters or so, Mountain Village boasts about 1700 tigers including Siberian tiger, South China tiger, Bendadesh tiger and white tiger also 400 black bears and other wild life, such as lions, panthers, snakes, monkeys and birds.
By international fund for the Cherish of Animal and International Association for Protection of Wildlife agreed with, Bear & Tiger Mountain village is the largest base for science research, breading, wildizing, sightseeing and amusement of black bear and tiger in the world.

Grand meeting of bear and tiger : 1100 1610
Theatre of dream : 0930 1440
Wildizing : 1140 1640

We were in the theatre of dreams.

It was the middle of the show. The tigers ended their performance and left the stage, roaring away.

A few men ran onto the stage and starting setting up the obstacles for the next act, it was the tight rope.

We’v seen several tight rope acts through out our trip, from tigers, ostriches to parrots. The tiger acts previously were disturbing, none the less, impressive. There were ( we were told they were trying a tiger act previously for the first time just for us ) 88 siberian tigers roaring in a single unison. It wasn’t a medley of messy gongs. It sounded nothing I could really describe in words. It took the tigers a whole 5 minutes to form up into a circle round the trainer, whom they called ‘tiger father’. Tiger father was shouting, cracking his whip lightly, ushering the tigers into their circular formation. Some were already standing on their hind legs. We could see where this act was going. After the last tiger got onto his hindlegs, there was a sudden stillness in the air.

Tiger father cracked his whip once. None of the tigers stirred. They stood still on their hind legs. He cracked his whip again. Some of the younger tigers mouthed a roar, but still there was silence. Then the 3rd crack came, a sharp one. The 88 tigers roared. They roared in unison, a single roar that lasted about 12 seconds. By the 6th second, I was looking for a possible exit. It was disturbing. You could see everyone face squirming up into a shock. So loud was the roar that I actually wondered if I’ll be blasted away. The chinese couple beside us were hugging each other tightly. The kid behind us started crying. An old lady was shouting but I cant really hear her. It looked like the end of the earth was coming and a comet the shape of a tiger head was crushing towards earth.

I clapped. Tiger father smiled at me and I snapped a few photographs, which annoyed him.

Then came the goat and the boy. We were told the boy was adopted by the goat from a tender age of 3. The boy could speak goat language and the goat looked like it understood him. The show ended with the crawling on all fours out of the stage

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