Tiger Range Countries to double the wild tiger population by the next year of the tiger in 2022. It doesn’t have to be this way. With a new Government forming in China, there is an opportunity to update laws and policies to value live tigers and other Asian big cats in the wild over the value of their body parts. Legislative change would bring China into compliance with UN agreements and in harmony with the efforts of other Tiger Range Countries, donor governments and non-government organisations (NGOs) working to save the remaining 3,500 wild tigers and to end demand for tiger parts and products. BELOW:
© WWF Pavel Fomenko (21st Century Tiger)
Demand for tigers skins as luxury home décor is a growing threat to wild tigers.
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Other countries with tiger ‘farms’, such as Thailand, Laos and Vietnam are watching to see what China can get away with. Trade in captive-bred tiger parts in and between those countries is
illegal. A handful of dedicated police officers are seizing parts of butchered tigers and arresting those involved but a lack of support further along the enforcement chain means few have been punished, and tiger farmers with the right connections continue to operate. It is past time for transparency around the status of trade in parts and products of captive-bred tigers. Governments of countries concerned about the survival of wild tigers and other Asian big cats must not shrink from calling for full disclosure and meaningful action under CITES to end all tiger trade and to end the breeding of tigers for trade in their parts and products. A failure to act indicates an implicit endorsement of a legal trade in the skins of captive-bred tigers, and the beginning of a slippery slope towards accepting a legal trade in the bones of captive-bred tigers.