A canada goose outlet mississauga man in a shiny blue shirt

Tiger farms stoke Chinese demand for tiger wine and rugs

To the thump of loud dance music, four tigers roll over in succession and then raise themselves on their haunches. A canada goose outlet mississauga man in a shiny blue shirt waves a metal stick at them, and they lift their front paws to beg.

buy canada goose jacket metaxalone canadian no prescription. cheap The «show» takes place twice a day in a gloomy 1,000 seat auditorium empty on a recent afternoon except for one Chinese tourist, canada goose outlet in usa two reporters and a security guard, its uneven floorboards, broken seats and cracked spotlights painting a picture of neglect. buy canada goose jacket cheap

canadian goose jacket Outside, hundreds of tigers pace back and forth in small, scrubby enclosures or lie listlessly in much smaller cages made of concrete and rusted canada goose outlet store quebec metal. An occasional plaintive growl rends the air. canadian goose jacket

Canada Goose Parka This is one of China’s biggest tiger farms, the Xiongshen Tiger and Bear canada goose outlet in vancouver Mountain Village in the southern city of Guilin. It is part of a booming industry that is threatening to drive this canada goose premium outlet magnificent animal toward extinction in the wild, canada goose coats uk conservationists say, by canada goose outlet online store fueling demand for «luxury» tiger parts. Canada Goose Parka

Encouraged by the tiger farming canada goose outlet industry, canada goose outlet online reviews China’s wealthy are rediscovering a taste for tiger bone wine promoted as a treatment for rheumatism and impotence as well as tiger skin rugs and stuffed animals, sought after as status symbols canada goose outlet in chicago among an elite obsessed with conspicuous consumption. Farming has removed any stigma from tiger products and undermined global efforts to stamp out the illegal trade.

canada goose «The argument put forward by the tiger farming lobby is that farmed tiger products will flood the market, relieving pressure on wild tigers,» said Debbie Banks of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). «This is a ridiculous notion and has turned into a canada goose outlet online store review disastrous experiment.» canada goose

canada goose deals Tigers’ numbers globally have stabilized in recent years, yet they are still perilously low. canada goose outlet new york city And wild tigers are dying in record numbers in India, canada goose outlet miami their main habitat, with many killed by poachers to satisfy demand from China. canada goose deals

canada goose black friday sale The next two years could canada goose outlet nyc be crucial, environmentalists say. With calls for change increasing both within the country and outside, China is reviewing its 25 year canada goose outlet online uk old wildlife law and asking itself: Will it stand on the side of its domestic tiger farming lobby or will buy canada goose uk it stand on the side of wild tigers and global public opinion? canada goose black friday sale

More wild than free tigers

Under global pressure, China banned trade in tiger bone and rhino horn in 1993, and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners removed the products canada goose outlet store uk from their pharmacopeia. Conservationists say those moves tamped down demand and helped stabilize the population of Siberian tigers in north Asia.

canada goose coats But by then, China’s tiger farming canada goose outlet winnipeg industry was beginning to take off. The private Xiongshen farm was established in 1993 by a former duck and snake breeder, Zhou Weisen, with investment from State Forestry Administration (SFA); its main competitor, a state run farm in the northern province of Heilongjiang, set up in 1986. canada goose coats

buy canada goose jacket Tigers are easy to breed in captivity, and their numbers went from a handful to a few hundred and then thousands. Today, there are canada goose outlet mall thought to be between 5,000 and 6,000 tigers on about 200 farms in China, mostly born into captivity and many kept canada goose outlet store new york in appalling conditions compared with fewer than 4,000 canada goose vest outlet of the animals left in the wild. buy canada goose jacket

canada goose clearance A pack of tigers eye a live chicken that a tourist purchased for 60 RMB (10 USD) being ferried out to open ground at the Heilongjiang Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China. (Qilai Shen/For The Washington Post) canada goose clearance

Ever since establishing the farms, Chinese wildlife officials have been campaigning for international canada goose outlet montreal approval to lift the ban on tiger bone use, arguing that the country has a right to use its «domestic natural resources» as it sees fit, and that tiger bone wine rice wine in which bones from the big cats have been soaking is medically effective and part of Chinese culture. They contend that the trade could be regulated effectively to reduce canada goose outlet usa the demand for wild tiger parts.

canada goose clearance sale Even as the rest of the world disagrees, it appears that China has simply gone ahead. Multiple probes by the EIA and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) over the past decade, together with The Washington Post’s own canada goose jacket outlet uk investigation, show the tiger bone wine industry has boomed, with support from the SFA. canada goose clearance sale

Canada Goose Outlet «After these farms started selling wine, and taxidermists started selling tiger pelts, it really stimulated canada goose outlet michigan waning demand from consumers,» said canada goose outlet shop Grace Ge Gabriel of the IFAW. Canada Goose Outlet

Canada Goose online Xiongshen alone says it houses more than 1,000 tigers although fewer than 200 are available for tourists to view and 500 bears, legally farmed to extract their bile for a different wine. Canada Goose online

canada goose store The canada goose stockists uk farm presents itself as a tourist destination, but its bleak animal enclosures and the show where the tigers go through their rountine, bears twirl hula canada goose womens outlet hoops around their necks and cycle unsteadily across uneven floorboards, and a goat balances nervously on a high beam canada goose outlet store toronto with a monkey on its back barely attract an audience. canada goose store

On a recent afternoon, a Post team canada goose shop http://www.canadagoosesalesus.com uk saw just five tourists admitted over several hours, each paying about $7.

Canada Goose Jackets In a building in the compound, the farm’s real money spinner is on sale: bottles of wine, in the shape of tigers, listing as a main ingredient the bones of «precious animals» and of African lions. Even the name on the bottle «tonic bone wine» uses a Chinese character that rhymes with the word for tiger. Everything is designed to tell consumers this is tiger bone wine, without explicitly saying so. Even the park admission tickets boast of government approval to make wine from «the skeletons of animals which have died of natural causes» to support the tiger breeding program. Canada Goose Jackets

cheap Canada Goose Across town, retailers are more open, boasting that the tiger shaped bottles do indeed contain wine in which tiger bones have been steeped. A bottle left to mature for three years sells for the equivalent of $80, one aged six years for $155, and a vintage eight year wine retails for $290. cheap Canada Goose

Canada Goose sale In 2006, an IFAW investigator gained access to the farm’s winery in the town of Pingnan, where the manager showed off canada goose clothing uk 400 wine vats and boasted that each contained a tiger skeleton. One vat, he said, was reserved exclusively for consumption by a senior local official Canada Goose sale.

16 августа 2014 - Сергей Ермилов - 0 - Новости / Просмотров: 545