South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

2018-03-02 10:30 - Adam Cruise

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Conservation Action Trust / Ian Michler

In the last five years, according to the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) trade database, South Africa has exported over 200 live captive-bred tigers, mostly to Asia and the middle-east. These figures exclude the dozens of tiger trophies, bones, claws and skulls exported over the same period.

Most (almost 100) were exported to Vietnam and Thailand, both countries which form part of the cat’s natural range. Other Asian countries favouring South African-bred tigers include Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan and China. All these countries – along with South Africa – are implicated in the legal and illegal trade in tiger products.

The trade is most likely driven by the demand for tiger bone wine, a form of traditional medicine used for the treatment of bone or joint-related ailments such as arthritis. Tiger bones are boiled down until they form a glue-like substance, which is then dried in cake-like blocks from which shavings are mixed with wine and consumed. The insatiable demand for tiger wine has decimated tigers throughout their natural range. Current estimates are that the wild tiger population throughout Asia is under 4,000, while in Vietnam, where demand for tiger wine is the greatest, there are estimated to be just five individuals.

The shortage has led to an increase in breeding tigers for their products. According to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an organisation that has been investigating the tiger trade for the past two decades, more than 7,000 tigers are kept in captivity in facilities throughout China, South-East Asia and South Africa. Many facilities in these countries have been implicated in illegal trade in tigers and their parts and derivatives.

South Africa, according to data from the EIA, has at least 280 tigers kept in 44 facilities across the country. Local legislation allows for the commercial breeding and domestic and international trade in captive-bred tigers, as it does with the export of bones from captive-bred lions.

Red flags being raised

South Africa’s involvement in the trade in tigers and tiger products has raised concern among CITES Parties. Wild tigers are listed as Appendix I species; commercial trade in the cats or their derivatives is forbidden. But if captive-bred, they are allowed to be traded under certain regulations which strictly monitor the trade.

The concern, however, is that there is little or no monitoring of the breeding facilities importing tigers from South Africa, with some farms implicated in selling tigers and tiger parts to Asia without the necessary export permits.

At the 69th Meeting of the Standing Committee in Geneva last year, a report by the CITES Secretariat stated that any country where tigers and other Asian big cat species are bred in captivity must “ensure that adequate management practices and controls are in place to prevent parts and derivatives from entering illegal trade from or through such facilities.”

The CITES Secretariat plans to “review legal and illegal trade in Asian big cats, identifying those which may be of concern”. In preparation of this review, the Secretariat issued a notification to the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) to provide the necessary information on the number of tigers and the number of facilities breeding tigers in South Africa. Asked about when they will collate and provide the information for the Secretariat, the DEA’s Deputy Director for CITES Policy Development and Implementation, Mpho Tjiane, said: “We have no timelines to achieving this goal as we have not planned.”

Wildlife investigator and filmmaker, Karl Ammann, who has been reporting on the live animal trade to Asia for years says: “South Africa won’t be in a rush to comply with the Secretariat’s directive as they know CITES tends to shy away from enforcing non-compliance measures.”

Out-going Secretary General of CITES, John Scanlon, said that CITES has compliance measures it can apply through its Standing Committee, which could include prosecuting offending breeders or dealers, confiscating animals, or a recommendation to suspend trade with the countries concerned. However, these measures, says Scanlon are “used as a last resort as our primary goal is to work with and assist CITES Parties in the effective implementation of the Convention.”

This means very little will be done to protect tigers in South Africa, says Ammann, and the country “will continue to play a major role in the illegal trade in wild tigers without fear of recrimination from the international body.”

(Source: Conservation Action Trust)


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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That's the kind of things that makes me sick :evil:


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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Its what I said before :X: Many South Africans farmers/businessmen are basically crooks who couldn't care a damn as long as they make money from their operations O/


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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Sickening! :evil: :evil:


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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I dunno, same principle as farming rhino horn, in a sense? Maybe theoretically it takes pressure off wild tigers... O-/ --00--


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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There are almost none left of the wild ones and they are all in reserves.


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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Tigers being bred in Gauteng backyards for petting and bone export

BY DON PINNOCK - 23 APRIL 2018 - DAILY MAVERICK

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South Africa is one the world’s biggest exporters of endangered tigers, almost all of which end up as floor mats, wall hangings or skeletons submerged in vats of Asian tiger-bone wine. The trade is so lucrative that city householders in Gauteng are breeding them in their backyards.

Because they’re not an indigenous species, trade in tigers is unregulated and flying below the radar of the DEA (Department of Environmental Affairs). When asked about it by Ban Animal Trading and the EMS Foundation, the DEA response was that tigers weren’t the department’s responsibility because they’re “exotics”. In reply to a request for information on tiger breeding facilities, Limpopo DEA wildlife director Sam Makhubele said the department had never been approached and he seemed surprised that they even existed.

However, 2015 a TRAFFIC/Wildcru report, Bones of Contention, estimated there were at the time 280 tigers in 44 facilities in South Africa. Today there are undoubtedly far more, but because tiger breeding doesn’t have to be reported, numbers are hard to establish.

A shock report by Ban Animal Trading and the EMS Foundation – sent to the UN wildlife trade organisation CITES – lists over 60 unlicensed tiger breeders, many of which market Bengal and Siberian tiger cubs, skins and bones worldwide. The report says South Africa’s lax and unregulated approach is contributing directly to the demise of tigers and the growth of the tiger bone industry. It notes that inbreeding is rampant and conditions under which many tigers are kept cruel and market-driven.

“South Africa’s management practices and controls are totally inadequate for such facilities,” it says, “and as a consequence there is nothing to prevent Asian big cats from entering illegal trade from or through the breeding and keeping facilities”.

When tigers cubs are too old to be used in petting parks, their primary value is their skins and bones. The meat of the animal at one facility, according to a researcher, was being offered at a tiger braai.

An irony at the heart of the tiger bone trade is that, in Asia, lion bones are being used in fake tiger bone wine, while in South Africa tiger bones are being faked as lion bones because the DEA has licensed lion bone export.

Tigers from South African breeding farms – particularly cubs taken from their mothers – are being exported to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Trinidad, Tobago, the United States, China, Egypt, Pakistan and Tanzania. Many of these farms are also hunting outfits and sell adult tigers to other hunting facilities and known exporters of animal bones. Additional revenue is from tourist cub petting.

The boom in tiger breeding is a marketing response to the demise of tigers in their home ranges. At the turn of the 20th century around 100,000 tigers roamed Asia. Today they’re scattered across just 7% of their former range, often in small “island” populations where isolation puts them at risk of becoming inbred and imperils their long-term survival.

Today about 2,633 Bengal tigers live in Nepal, Bhutan and India. The remainder – 1,257 tigers – are split among the other four subspecies: Siberian, Indochinese, Malay, and Sumatran. These subspecies are almost extinct.

The greatest threat is poaching. In the past seven years the cats have been hunted out of 40 percent of their range. As a result of these declines, the demand for tiger parts is sky rocketing.

Tiger expert Judith Mills told National Geographic that the main reason for the demand was that powerful forces continue to stimulate demand for tiger products.

“In China an estimated 6,000 tigers live on farms, waiting to be turned into rugs, tiger-bone wine and high-status entrées. That demand means that every wild tiger has a price on its head.”

Tiger breeding and export in South Africa appears to violate the country’s commitment to CITES regulations. If tigers are being bred for international trade in establishments without accreditation, it’s in violation of CITES Resolution Conf. 12.10, which requires registration of Appendix I breeding facilities operating for commercial purposes. There’s also CITES Decision 14.69, which requires such facilities to ‘implement measures to restrict the captive population to a level supportive only to conserving wild tigers; tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives’.

And Resolution Conf. 12.5 (Rev. CoP16) urges “Parties and non-Parties on whose territories tigers and other Asian big cat species are bred in captivity to ensure that adequate management practices and controls are in place to prevent parts and derivatives from entering illegal trade from or through such facilities”.

Tiger breeding began in South Africa in about 2000 when wildlife videotographer John Varty opened Tiger Canyons near Philappolis in the Free State and imported several cats as a rewilding project. Varty’s partners, Li Quan and Stuart Bray of the NGO Save China’s Tigers, broke with him following a court case in which they accused Varty of misusing the funds they donated in the making of a film, Living with Tigers. They opened the Laohu Valley Reserve nearby as a South China tiger rewilding project, but no cats are known to have been rewilded to their homeland.

In 2008 the NSPCA filed a case in the Supreme Court against Laohi Valley of cruelty to animals released into tiger enclosures to be hunted. The case was not upheld. At both centres people have been killed by big cats and in 2012 Varty was badly mauled by a tiger.

The report by Ban Animal Trading and EMS found 64 South African facilities in all provinces plus a number of backyarders in Gauteng breeding or housing tigers. Almost none were registered as CITES breeding facilities.

According to the report one facility, Mystic Monkeys and Feathers in Limpopo, appears to be a huge breeding facility for tigers, given the fact that they can export more than 15 tiger cubs at once and then still have tiger cubs available for petting at the zoo. Another facility, Mbidi Lodge in Limpopo, while not registered as a breeding facility, was found to often have tiger cubs which disappeared after a few months.

In a number of facilities, says the report, there have been media reports of suspected illicit trading. Voi Lodge – DKC Trading owned by Michael Chu, had more than 50 tigers and has been linked to criminal syndicates in Vietnam.

Leopard breeding outfit Letsatsi la Africa has been publicly linked by Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa to wildlife smuggling by the the Laos-based Xaysavang Network. The network was described by former US Secretary of State John Kerry as one “of the most prolific international wildlife trafficking syndicates in operation”.

Despite welfare issues, cruelty, illegality and violation of conservation principles, South Africa has turned a blind eye to tiger farming. According to the NSPCA, owning a pet tiger is legal in Gauteng and animal welfare groups can do nothing about it.

“Under the Animal Protection Act and the by-laws, we have no grounds to confiscate,” Boksburg SPCA Maggie Mudd told The Citizen newspaper.

“It doesn’t make sense that I need a permit to keep a tortoise but I can keep a tiger.”

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Read original article: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... t7fGMiFPIU


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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Disgusting! I wonder if the DEA is going to do something about it or just wash their hands. For once I would like to have a pleasant surprise, but am very doubtful about it :evil:


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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O-/ 0- 0- 0-


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Re: South Africa exporting hundreds of Asian tigers to Asia

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It would be an important "conversation" as to finally deciding where the lines between bio-utilisation (commercial farming), sustainable use conservation, and private commercial game farming should be drawn. The whole thing is a mess when 3rd world poverty is thrown into the mix, along with first world social media outrage. 0:


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