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Tiger farming: India debates China experiment

  • 14/05/2007

Tiger farming: India debates China experiment  The tiger could be made to pay its way out of crisis if a section of conservationists in the country have their way, the Chinese way, actually. China is now considering legalising trade in products from its tiger farms, an admission that a 1993 ban on trade in animal parts had failed. The strategy is doing the rounds of conservation circles in India as well. Proponents argue that a legal market for tiger parts would depress the profitability of poaching and, hence, help protect the remaining tigers in the wild.

Barun Mitra, director of the New Delhi-based think tank Liberty Institute is among them. "All attempts to bar hunting and trade in tiger parts have failed even though tiger reserves were created,' he says. But others like Sanjay Gubbi, programme manager at the Bangalored-based Centre for Wildlife Studies disagrees: "Habitat degradation and prey depletion, not poaching, is the real reason behind the decline of the tiger population.' The Pakistani tiger expert Noman F Qadir, however, argues: "Issues related to poaching, prey depletion and habitat loss should not be seen in isolation.' Many agree.

Mitra suggests another reason for the viability of commercial tiger farming. "With the growing popularity of traditional Chinese medicines that are said to have tiger parts, the animal can in effect pay for its own survival,' he says. Some experts criticise this proposal on ethical grounds. "There is a great demand for human organs which is not