Zoos kill healthy tigers for the skin trade

[LeftyMom]

Source: The Sunday Times (of London, UK)

ZOOS are killing healthy tigers and other endangered species and selling their skins to be stuffed and mounted as trophies for private collectors, an investigation has found.

The skins are sold by the zoos to taxidermists who prepare them for clients in defiance of attempts by the government to stifle the trade in tiger products.

Last week undercover reporters from The Sunday Times were offered the skins from two zoo tigers, which were both only a few years old when they died, for £6,000. “There are too many of them and if they are not put down they will die of old age, get incinerated and thrown away,” Andre Brandwood, a Hertford-shire taxidermist, told them.

He said zoos had recognised there was a market and were placing a “shelf life” on animals to cash in by having them stuffed before they got old, suffered illness and then cost them money. “What’s happening is that various zoos . . . realised there’s a market, hence . . . there is a fixed price on tigers.”

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2116179.ece

[PeaceNikki]

1. Your link is broken...

Does this one work?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2116179.ece


huh.... it doesn't seem to, weird. I Googled and found it, though.

[LeftyMom]

3. Yep. I'll try to edit.

Thanks!

[flvegan]

2. They need to be killed over there

so that we don't want to kill them over here. Or something.

My Lowry has a buncha elephants they shouldn't.

[LeftyMom]

5. But but but... Zoos are vital to conservation!

:sarcasm:

[silverojo]

22. Not all zoos are doing this sh*t

Thank God. :mad:

[MikeNearMcChord]

4. I would love to have the assets of these scum

confiscated for doing this, but many live in countries well protected. But any American caught doing this needs to be skinned!:grr:

[aquart]

19. Stuffed, and put on display.

Fine by me.

[Beaverhausen]

6. That's fucked up

[The Stranger]

7. I shouldn't have clicked on this.

It only made me enraged.

[emilyg]

8. Same here now I want to go beat 'm up

[Prophet 451]

12. You did well, I got depressed n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. Tigers belong in the wild

not in zoos

[Lorien]

10. "There are too many of them"????

the taxidermist obviously does not understand the concept of "endangered species"

The only thing that there are "too many of" are greedy, ignorant, and selfish human beings. :grr:

[candice]

11. A save the tiger group recommended by Sierra Club

From: http://savingwildtigers.org/savingwildtigers/enter.html

Our focus is on wild tigers and we do not support captive breeding of tigers - they are big cats in cages that would never survive if released into the wild. One of the most fascinating facts about the wild tiger is the extremely close and extended bond between the tigress and her cubs. A tiger learns every survival skill from its mother - which can not happen if they are fed in cages. If we preserve their habitat, they will live. Probably the most important reason for saving the wild tiger is that being at the top of food chain, its survival means the survival of all other species that live in her habitat and preserving the complex relationships within an ecosystem that was created by Nature.

For more information, read The Tiger: Power and Fragility by Dr. Ullas Karanth, a leading India-based tiger scientist and a Conservation Zoologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society of New York.

Other Links:

Project Tiger (Govt of India)
Project Tiger Control Room

[Up2Late]

13. Oh, what a horrible discovery, hopefully this will be the beginning of an awaikening...

...to this problem.

Someone should establish a major large cat preserve somewhere, because if you just release them into the wild they will just be killed by the poachers.

Sad.:cry:

[Wiccan Warrior]

14. I think they need to be skinned and have their hide sold to cannibals n/t

[ProgressiveEconomist]

15. Slippery slope: Z-O-O to A-P-F (Animal Parts Factory)

[MetaTrope]

16. This story is more than a little lacking in verifiable information

What zoo(s) did the skins come from? Tigers aren't just kept in a back room somewhere...if they were in a British zoo, they would have been named and their disappearance would have been noted in some fashion. Sorry, I'm smelling bullshit here.

[flvegan]

17. Take another whiff...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2116207.ece

[MetaTrope]

18. Thank you, THAT is a story

Still, the question it begs for me is what can be done to keep the tigers alive when they are being successfully bred by facilities with finite resources?

Case in point:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200504/08/eng20050408_180022.html

[pitohui]

21. birth control and planned breeding is the option used by my zoo

audubon zoo in new orleans has been using birth control, where needed, on big cats for two decades

there are indeed a finite number of zoos that can display and care for big cats in a wild-type safe environment, so the use of birth control does come into play

zoos do get attention from the public for successful breeding and there is a publicity aspect to breeding, but the wise zoos try to plan so that animals will not have to be "surplused" unnecessarily

keeping wild tigers wild is a noble ideal but it will result in their extinction in a 100 years or so, there are too many people, and sensible people do not want wild tigers around their villages, suburbs, etc, so we have a conflict going until people voluntarily cut way back on overpopulating this planet, which will never happen for political reasons (if i cut back on breeding MY kind i will be outbred by fascist and fundy fuckwits)

[Bacchus39]

20. for porn movies???

ahhh...nevermind