China wants to farm tigers and use body parts for medicine

CHINA is trying to persuade India - home to the largest population of wild tigers in the world - to back the idea of farming the big cats for their body parts, Indian officials said yesterday.

An attempt to amend a 14-year-old ban on trading in tiger parts is expected to be made by China at a convention on wildlife trade in the Netherlands next month, and officials from Beijing have held meetings with their Indian counterparts.

They maintain that farming the animals would be a better way of saving the species than trying to keep them alive in the wild.

But an Indian official who met the Chinese opposed a move that conservationists warned could devastate the rapidly dwindling wild tiger population.

Rajesh Gopal, the head of Project Tiger, a government programme charged with preserving the big cats in India, said: "The Chinese have said they think bans on wildlife trade have not helped any species."

China committed to the ban on trading in tiger parts under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, in 1993.

But now it reportedly wants the prohibition amended to allow the sale of parts from farmed tigers. Tiger pelts are highly valued in places such as Tibet and their bones and body parts are prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

Conservationists say the Chinese government is under pressure from the owners of tiger farms in the country, where there are an estimated 4,000 captive tigers.

Mr Gopal said the Chinese also felt that farms were the best way to preserve the species. "We disagree with that. We say the convention has definitely helped us to preserve the tiger species," he insisted.

Conservationists say that permitting farmed tiger parts to be sold would spur poaching because it is cheaper to kill a wild animal than to raise a tiger on a farm, and the parts would be indistinguishable.

India is already struggling to preserve its own tigers from constant poaching and habitat loss. In 2005, officials were forced to acknowledge that poaching had wiped out every tiger in one of India's reserves.

Officials from a number of governments estimate that there are 3,000 to 5,000 wild tigers left in the world.

A CAFFEINE SUBSTITUTE?

THE ground bones of a tiger are used as a stimulant in traditional Chinese medicine on the basis that tigers are vigourous animals with large amounts of energy.

Tiger penis soup is also traditionally regarded as a significant pick-me-up for men across much of east Asia, with white tiger's appendages thought to be particularly effective.

Tiger penises are also believed to have aphrodisiac properties.

Other animals thought to have special qualities include the endangered rhinoceros, whose horn is used to treat fever or as an aphrodisiac, and sharks, whose fins are said to nourish the blood, invigorate the kidneys and lungs, and improve digestion.