- - Tiger abuse in Chinese zoo - -

The news item I chose for this assignment recounts about a Chinese Zoo that was closed down due to the death of 11 Siberian Tigers and to the fact that it was accused of selling tonics made of tiger body parts.

Shenyang Forest Wildlife Zoo was a semi-private institution that started to reduce food rations due to financial problems. The investigation on said zoo began after 11 Siberian tigers died of starvation in the space of 6 months. Apparently the keepers were feeding them cheap chicken pieces because the zoo was short of money. The institution was also accused of providing tiger bones and penises to manufacturers of traditional chinese medicines (despite being a ban on such kind of trade). One of the zoo employees actually stated that since 2000 around 40 to 50 tigers died in the zoo and the fact that their bones were being used to produce tiger-bone-wine was something pretty much everybody knew. The zoo spended more money on the purchase and maintenance of freezers (used to preserve saleable tiger parts) than on the food required by the felines.

Sadly this situation seems to be quite common in China, around 6,000 to 10,000 animals are currently being sheltered by institutions that only pose as breeding centers (their real objective being the farming and marketing of animal parts). The investigation started by the authorities will also examine the situation in which other captive-breeding business are. The paper actually discovered that more than 1,000 captive tigers are in danger of sufering malnourishment.

One of the problems lies within the fact that China has no laws against animal cruelty and the government does not supervise breeding centers. Therefore anyone with enough funds can build a zoo or a wildlife park and do whatever they please with the animals in it. Nevertheless, the government announced that captive breeding system will be re-evaluated if the investigation reveals such abuse to be happening in other centers.

I personally consider this to be awful news. The Chinese government really ought to regularly inspect zoos (specially the ones sheltering endangered species). I also think Chinese people should think about the effect that some of their traditions have on animal welfare (after all, animal parts trade survives because of the public’s demand). I do realize however how difficult this is.


PS: Here's the Link to the news item -> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/17/chinese-zoo-tiger

PS2: I guess I'll ask Nacho and Simon to review this. Tere is welcome to do so too of course!! =D

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