I’ve been researching tiger tourism for a magazine article & what a mess India has allowed the issue to become.
There’s a real possibility that in the not too distant
future tigers will only exist in zoos.
But even zoos are not safe places for tigers. This September
in India’s north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh a gang of poachers managed
to enter a high-security zoo in the capital and hack a tiger to death.
They choose a time when all three security guards decided to
go to lunch together, leaving the animals unprotected. Poachers were free to
enter the zoo, tranquillise the six-year-old tigress & then cut her to
pieces whilst she was unconscious.
The Zoo chief, Zoram Dopum, said that the poachers fled when
the ‘hapless’ security guards returned - but no one has been identified,
captured or prosecuted for the slaughter.
The growing wealth in China & southeast Asia has seen
demand for dead tiger products skyrocket. Tiger skins fetch $20,000, bones sell
for $1,200 per kilogram and a whole animal would retail at $30,000.
Poaching is rampant and is the primary cause of the year on
year decline in tiger numbers – there are even some tiger reserves where
resident tigers have been poached to extinction.
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