The Feb 18 NY Times Editorial on conserving tigers, gets much of the issues wrong. Bear in mind, I have the almost unique pleasure of investigating the Chinese black market in a study over 2007-8 and this was published in a peer-reviewed study. In short, I do actually know what is going on in China.





One of the most intractable problems in species protection is the Chinese appetite for traditional medicines. … Despite bans – by China’s government and international agreements – on the sales of some materials and the near extinction of many of the animals used in traditional medicine, prices for animal parts continue to rise, and so do the incentives for poachers and sellers.



Good so far, note that bans are often claimed by conservationists to reduce demand. Not sure there is any evidence that tiger parts have increased in price as the data is too sparse and thinly spread to get any handle on that. But we do know the black market prices are high. So demand has not been addressed by this.





As The Times reported recently, one particularly horrifying practice is Chinese tiger farms, … In reality, their purpose is to raise tigers to be butchered and consumed.



Okay, I’m not entirely sure why tiger farms are specifically horrifying. Mostly the animals looked bored as there’s not a lot of enrichment activity. But other than that, they’re looked after (food, shelter, medicines) fairly well. Clearly the tigers are intended for commercial sale. And there is no problem in recognising that there has been ‘leakage’ from the Guilin farm. It is an entirely other thing to claim that this is a widespread activity sanctioned by authorities and something all other tiger farms do. It is fairly obvious that the Guilin farm is the only site in China that gets targeted for attention.



The tiger farms also do nothing to take pressure off the dwindling population of wild tigers. Chinese consumers believe parts from wild tigers have greater medicinal potency. In China, there are only some 20 wild tigers left. And Chinese demand – heightened by the farms and the beginning of the Year of the Tiger – has caused sharply increased poaching in India, which has only about 1,400 wild tigers left.



Ouch, there is absolutely no evidence that the tiger farms sustain demand by China for wild tigers. Most illegal traffic in tigers occurs in border regions away from the farms. There has been no illegal activity of wild tigers in the Guilin area. There has been a lot in Yunnan and Tibet where there are no farms.



Further, how many times do we have to point this out? India is the source of black-market tiger skins to the skin markets of central Asia (often Tibetans). The medicine markets in the east of China are largely supplied out of Indo-Chinese tigers. India hasn’t been losing tigers to medicine markets in China. They’re been losing them to decades-old skin markets.



Similarly, Indonesians who poach tigers for parts in the local markets, don’t care what someone in China is doing. The farms aren’t driving demand. It is centuries of culture in Asia of using tiger parts that drives demand.



The Chinese government seems to be doing little or nothing to shut down tiger farms or punish those who buy or sell tiger parts. …



This is just wrong. China has busted more conspiracies- with successful prosecutions- then the rest of Asia put together. When China does detect a conspiracy, the culprits have received severe penalties- up to and including death sentences.



It’s not China that has been lax with enforcement.



Unless China does both – shuts down the tiger trade and finds a way to alter consumers’ tastes – the wild tiger is almost surely doomed.



This completely misses the problem. Tiger farms are a minor issue. At best, they could alleviate some of the poaching pressure in Indo-China. At worst, they will have no impact on poaching. The reason is there is not a single black-market in Asia, and the black-market is not located solely in China. The black-market for tiger parts is diverse and operates in different markets and different countries.



The vast majority of the poaching episodes occurs as local peoples in range-states opt to kill them. That is probably where you need to be focusing efforts. The final markets are much harder to identify and target.



I wish people would stop getting so fixated on China’s tiger farms and actually look at realistic ways to crack these diverse black markets. Tiger farms are really a minor issue given the array of extinction forces currently facing tigers.



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I can recommend the following paper on the Chinese black market:

Brendan Moyle (2009) The black market in China for tiger products Global Crime, Volume 10(1): 124—143