China has rejected the calls by India and international community to close down its tiger farms, blamed for perpetuating trade in tiger body parts, saying that the sharp drop in the population in the big cat has nothing do with their existence.
Yin Hong, Deputy Director of China's State Forestry Administration, said although some tiger farms in China have been caught illegally selling tiger products for medical or decorative uses from time to time, the drop in the wild tiger population is not related to the farms.
China is still among several countries, including Thailand, where tiger farms are legal, though a domestic trade ban on tiger products was issued in 1993.
Now, the country has 12 farms breeding more than 6,500 tigers.
"The fast disappearing natural habitat and cross-border illegal trade are major causes (for shrinking wild tiger numbers), rather than the farms," Yin has been quoted by the official China Daily as saying.
The farms were set up earlier than the ban, which makes the tigers the farm owners' private belongings, she said.
Confirming the existence of illegal trading tiger products such as bones in China, she said that her administration has limited power in regulating the tiger farms.
The Chinese assertions will come as a disquieting news for India as poaching of dwindling Indian Tigers which has fallen to low levels of about 1,4000 is driven by the demand for tiger bones and body parts for Chinese medicine.
India's Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh has taken up the issue of curbing illegal trade on tiger parts with top Chinese leaders during his recent visit.
Last December, the State Forestry Administration carried out a new crackdown on the illegal trade of tiger parts.
A fund was established in 2008 by the central government to compensate farmers' economic losses caused by the endangered animals including tigers.
Despite the hype over China celebrating the advent of the new year as the Year of Tiger, at least 11 Siberian tigers have starved to death in the past three months at a north eastern wildlife zoo that was closed for disciplinary reform after a violent tiger assault last year, the China News Agency reported yesterday.
Industry insiders said the care and feeding of the tigers is expensive. At the same time, the owners will profit from the tigers' deaths, keeping the animals' bodies in the freezer for eventual trade in the black market.
"Tiger farming somewhat stimulates illegal trade and consumption," 'China Daily' quoted Xu Hongfa, director of the World Wild Life's China programme as saying.
Tiger parts, particularly the bones, are illegally traded worldwide, he said.
Many international animal protection advocacy groups blame traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for the decrease in the tiger population in the wild, which now stands at 3,200 worldwide.
Tiger bones are used to treat arthritis and other joint ailments in TCM, which utilises approximately 1,000 plant and 36 animal species, including rhinoceros, black bear and musk deer.
