Vijay Barve

The vanishing cat

Cruel almost beyond belief, Chinese farms are breeding hundreds of tigers in battery cages ... so they can be killed and turned into wine...


Although the Xiongsen tiger park, near Guilin in south-east China, appears to be a depressingly typical Third World zoo, with a theme park restaurant and open areas where tigers roam, it actually hides a far more sinister secret — it's a factory farm breeding tigers to be eaten and made into wine.

Visitors to the park can dine on strips of stir-fried tiger with ginger and Chinese vegetables. Also on the menu are tiger soup and a spicy red curry made with tenderised strips of the big cat. Visitors can wash it all down with a glass or two of wine made from Siberian tiger bones.

A waitress at the farm’s restaurant says: “The tiger meat is produced here. It’s our business. When Government officials come here, we kill a tiger for them so they have fresh meat. Other visitors are given meat from tigers killed in fights. We now have 140 tigers in the freezer”.

Tigers and other endangered species are being reared on an industrial scale throughout China, despite international treaties forbidding this. The Guilin farm alone has 1,300 tigers, including the incredibly rare and elusive Siberian sub-species.

It rears and slaughters Bengal, South China and White tigers. More than 300 African lions and 400 Asiatic black bears are also reared here for food and traditional Chinese medicines.

The Chinese authorities claim that farms like the one at Guilin are a vital part of the country's conservation efforts, and that they will one day release these endangered creatures back into the wild.

Virtually all the tigers from the Guilin farm end up at a winery 100 miles to the north, their carcasses dumped in huge vats of rice wine and left to rot for up to nine years.

The Chinese believe that the tiger's strength passes into the wine as its body decomposes. They also believe that it is a powerful medicine that wards off arthritis, strengthens bones and acts as a general tonic.

Smelling like a mixture of methylated spirits, antiseptic and congealed meat, it is difficult to believe that anyone would willingly drink it, and yet people pay up to £100 a pint for it.

Tiger farmers also have their eyes on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. They hope that a huge influx of tourists will lead to increased demand for tiger wine.

Although it is illegal to trade internationally in such tiger products as wine, the Chinese are lobbying hard to get the law relaxed. This June, the Chinese Government is expected to press the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to allow the trade in 'medicines' such as wine produced from farmed tigers.

If agreed, it will lead to a massive increase in tiger farming and tens of thousands of these noble beasts will spend their lives in battery cages. If the Chinese get their way, then it will almost certainly drive the tigers over the cliff into extinction.
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posted by Vijay Barve @ 12:05 AM