IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
| Gibney, F. | |
| Should Tigers Be a Cash Crop? | |
| 1995 Time: 14-14 | |
Welcome to the World's largest tiger farm, says the green and blue sign outside Somphong Temsiriphong's new zoo. The Sriracha Farm Zoo and Resort Co. is certainly a breed apart. Down a country road 2« hours from the roar of Bangkok traffic, the private reserve is home to an eclectic collection of wallabies, deer, camels and 20,000 Asian crocodiles. But the budding zookeeper's pride - and the source of considerable controversy among conservationists around the world - is his menagerie of 35 hybrid Asian tigers. "Some of these animals are becoming extinct, and I want to have a place where people can enjoy them", Somphong recently explained between bites of crocodile steak at the zoo's restaurant. Building up the population of one of the world's most endangered species would seem to be a proper and magnanimous gesture, but conservationists are outraged by what they suspect is Somphong's long term goal to harvest and sell tiger penises and other body parts that bring high prices in Asia. Scientific evidence to the contrary, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine insist that crushed tiger bones and tiger genitalia can cure everything from arthritis to impotence. By most estimates, only about 5,000 tigers are left in the wild, largely because of the price they bring poachers. Despite an international prohibition against the trade, a whole tiger can fetch more than $10,000 on the black market in China and Southeast Asia. |
|
 |
PDF files are only accessible to Friends of the Cat Group. Joining Friends of the Cat Group gives you unlimited access and downloads in the Cat SG Library for one year, and allows you to receive our newsletter Cat News (2 regular issues per year plus special issues). More information how to join here |
(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |