He makes a damned good point. Make the animal worth more alive than dead to the local people. The problem with the Amur tiger is that it is being attacked on two fronts. One, the Chinese are providing a market for parts, and the Japanese are demanding the Korean pine from the forests that the tigers call home, both of which are illegal.
He's way off base on this one. How is somebody owning some tigers and opening market to them supposed to prevent the poachers somewhere else from taking advantage of a now larger market?
Creating a legal trade in tiger products may equal larger numbers of tigers in the world in time BUT does anyone really believe that 10 000 inbred creatures raised in chinese bone farms would be anything like the splendour of one of those wild beasts roaming wild in his own world? We would lose the wild tiger as a direct result and leave it to profit driven businessmen to safeguard the genetics and instincts of this grand beast (if bones are the product I'm sure tigers would be built like rhinos in another hundred years if a scheme like this was allowed).
I know efforts to safeguard this animal in the wild are troubled but I have no doubt that private ownership of animals with huge natural ranges per animal will not work. The public must buy into protection of large tracts of habitat and be educated to value the animals that share their world, understanding that sustainable ecosystems will be among the most valuable of commodies in the future.
As I said we have to make the animal worth more alive than dead to the local people. It ain't just bones that these tigers are being killed for. They use nearly every damned part of the animals. Even the penis is used for soup by old men trying to stave off impotency.
Tiger Hunting??
Tiger farm farce.
Linear Mode
