Behind rusted bars, a skeletal male tiger lies panting on the filthy concrete floor of his cage, covered in sores and untreated wounds. His once-fearsome body is so emaciated it is little more than a pitiful pile of fur and bones.
Death is surely a matter of days away and can only come as a welcome release. Wardens at the wildlife park in southwest China say, indifferently, that they do not expect him to see the start of the Year of the Tiger which began last Sunday.
‘What can we do?’ a female park official asks a small huddle of visitors with a sigh and a casual shrug. ‘He’s dying, of course, but we have to keep feeding him until he does. It’s against the law to kill tigers.’
Instead, it seems, they die slowly of neglect. In row after row of foul, cramped cages, more tigers lie alone, crippled and dying. One is hunched up against the side of its cage with its neck grotesquely deformed. Another, blinded in one eye, lies motionless.
This shabby, rundown park in Guilin – one of China’s main tourist cities – is home to the world’s biggest single collection of tigers. Yet it is never included on foreigners’ tour itineraries.
For here, 1,500 captive tigers – around half as many as there are thought to be remaining in the wild – live out miserable lives in squalid conditions.
Each tiger costs around £6 a day to feed, and it is easy to see that the small clusters of visitors paying £7.50 each to wander around the cages and watch bizarre animal shows cannot possibly cover even the cost of food for the vast park.
The reason is the tigers, mostly Siberian, are far more valuable dead than alive.
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China — The most disgusting country on earth
I’m sure the WWF and PETA will be on this, fighting for the rights of tigers everywhere, just as soon as they finish fleecing the public on global warming.
Have you ever visited PETA’s site? One thing that can be said for them is that they stay on topic. The anti-environmental types definitely scored a victory on the AGW data scandal, but there is solid anecdotal evidence of animal abuse (warning: that link is not for the fainthearted, though since it took place in China I’m sure its authenticity won’t be disputed) so try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I’ve got no serious issues with PETA. Funny, only this morning at Tim’s the better half remarked that she’d like to go and see a bullfight in Spain. I said I wouldn’t, it’s cruel torture and should be outlawed. She disagreed so I told her why go to Spain, I could arrange for her to work a shift on the killing floor at the local abattoir, and its way more humaine. Nope, it’s got to be a bullfight. I told her that IMO her wanting to go to a bullfight has nothing to do with the bull, it’s all about the matador’s tight pants. Me and my big mouth, I had to buy my own coffee.
I am not a PETA fan but I am absolutely against animal cruelty. Is there nothing the rest of the world can do to stop this Chinese practice? Surely to goodness economic pressure can be brought to bear somehow although I guess I really don’t know.
All the squawking and protests over the Canadian seal hunt yet I have never heard a single peep about this absolutely disgusting and unimaginable cruelty. Until today.
This story disgusts me and I truly wonder why Canada continues to do business with barbarians.
My view is that Canada should shut down all Chinese imports and revert to Canadian products.
China can “bite my ass”.
I forwarded Cynapse’s link to my MP with personal comments and suggested he ‘pass it along’.
I would suggest that in light of the video I have just presented that Canada cut off ALL Chinese products in Canada.
Everything with no “forgivens”.
We don’t do business with a country that is so retarded.
We can do better on our own.
More to the point. Canada has often been accused of the same sort of behavior regarding seals.
We need to end it because we really do care.
There is a better way.
Given their treatment of their own human female population and their practices regarding human body parts, I am not really surprised. Revolted yes, but not surprised!
When I am shopping I do take the time to at least try to purchase something that is NOT made in China but that is increasingly difficult.
I do wish that we could somehow boycot them, but I fear that we are getting ever closer as dictated by the fluctuations in foreign markets, after all we are a trading nation depending on exports and imports.
So what do we do? Seize every opportunity to expose crap like this, I guess. And buy carefully. And embrace the protesters inside and outside of China at every opportunity.
GD heathens!
Strangely the nominally Communists of China seem to breed the most unethical and savage examples of ” free enterprise ” greed and anything for a buck dishonest practices like stuff that can kill babies in formula to this horrible stuff in this article !
In many ways very primitive stuff one would expect of 19th century robber barons or a pre-nanny state unregulated ” free for all ” ! We do tend to deplore the excessive regulations of our nanny state because they have become way too pervasive, but like anything the poison is in the dose !
On the other hand some responsible for the baby formula stuff have faced capital punishment !
Historically, before the Communist regime the Chinese have been for thousands of years enthusiastic capitalists and small business men, as well as gamblers, and after the restrictions on commerce where relaxed by their Communist Government they embraced commerce with a vengeance, maybe too much of a vengeance !
I could only watch a part of the video, Jack. The calm, detached way that those men skinned live animals is too much for normal people to see; further to the disgrace is that they did what they did in frount of an audience and the audience did not attack them or grab that animal and kill him to put him out of his horrific pain. People who will do deeds like this are people who will do anything and not feel any regret or remorse for the agony they inflicted on another living creature. The human soul in this ilk is perverted and twisted and evil – and is not fit for life, IMO.
The tigers starving to death are another egregious example of China’s hard heart toward beauty, courage and life. It is the denial of all positive abstract nouns, the people have lost their souls because they don’t have a value on their own lives. If people are owned and controlled they do not have a life, they just exist. China is just as ruthless to the people who live in that Godless nation, they harvest organs from live political prisoners, they work people to death in camps and mines, they kill babies – esp. baby girls – before and after birth – like these little people don’t feel anything! It is not a giant leap to kill little people from those that will skin live animals.
The UN gave a baby killer the Nobel Prize – PETA is silent.
Killing any living creature, man or beast, in a dignified , clean way is not a dead soul act; killing people or creatures without care for the life of that is taken, innocent lives that have never done the killer harm, is the work of the guy downstairs. Death, like life, in mature humans is complicated; the life and death of babies and animals is never complicated; therefore the latter are not damned and they have no lessons to learn (which would justify a cruel death). People who disregard this simple rule damn themselves, they violate the rules of being human.
As for the seals – the seals are shot I hope. A bullet will not bankrupt anyone and it can save the souls of the people who kill. If a person is shot crossing a street by a snipper, he/she never suffers; if a animal is killed with a bullet by a marksman that does not miss, that animal does not suffer, it is a good, clean death. Intentional slow cruel deaths lie on the souls of the controllers and on the souls of those who see that cruelity if those observers say and do nothing. PETA is not that consience, that outfit have an agenda , IMO; they are not harrassing China or Chicken farmers or windfarms; people like us are the consience – by posting this video and having people express their horror is the consience – it is the voice and actions of good men and women objecting to evil and saying and doing something.
Re # 12: Didn’t watch the video and from I just read above I’m glad I didn’t !
I think it is time to put this one back of the FRONT BURNER jack.
Let the people ‘have at it’ for a day or 2. This is very informative and indicative of an entire society that is EVIL, pure and simple!
CRB
Re #12, of course PETA has an agenda – elevating animal rights up to the level of human rights. In pursuit of their lofty and unattainable goals, they’ll at least draw attention to some of the worse instances of animal abuse
Of course you have an agenda, it’s China-bashing and self-congratulation. So do most of the posters, it seems. I seem to recall PETA being called leftist whackos after they drew attention to mistreatment of elephants at American circuses and inhumane conditions for chickens at KFC-related processing plants.
The seals are not shot first. They are clubbed to death, much for the same reason the Chinese skin those animals alive – so to not spoil the fur. Pelts unharmed by bullet or arrow holes are more valuable.
“The seals are not shot first. They are clubbed to death, much for the same reason the Chinese skin those animals alive”
Some hunters do shoot the seals although clubbing is the most common (cheapest) method of killing them. The Chinese do not skin these animals alive because it is better for the fur. It has nothing to do with preserving the condition of the fur. They skin them alive because they are uncaring and inhumane.
LOL, ok BTDT, you keep believing that. You are a superior being because you are North American.
http://www.furisdead.com/
To kill the animals without damaging their fur, trappers usually strangle, beat, or stomp them to death. Animals on fur farms may be gassed, electrocuted, poisoned with strychnine, or have their necks snapped. These methods are not 100 percent effective and some animals “wake up” while being skinned.
Re: #17. Sadly it’s not a laughing matter. So you tell me, they could slit the animals throat in a heartbeat and ensure its death and damage nothing, so why don’t they? Here, let me answer that for you. Because they don’t give a s**t. Do you have a strong dislike for anything North American or what?
What I have a strong dislike for is people being too far up their own asses for simply being born into a dominant nation. This is the ultimate form of elitism, especially when you turn a blind eye to atrocities in your own backyard highlighted by the same group.
What’s that saying about minding your own backyard first?
And what’s behind the pathology whereby every international issue must be used as an opportunity to showboat?
You’re going off on a tangent. You’ll not make me feel guilty for being born in Canada.
Only problem I’m having today is with typing.
One could say unsolicited nationalistic chauvinism is either a sign of ignorance, insecurity or deeply-held guilt. You don’t strike me as being ignorant or insecure. So why do you feel the need to big up your nation, even at odds with evidence and in spite of circumstance? It’s unsightly, whatever the reason you do it.
I don’t know about everyone else but I don’t need PETA to tell me what is right or wrong regarding cruelty – animal or otherwise. We, humans are at the top of the food chain. We are dominant. But that does not mean that we are allowed the act in an inhumane manner. We can and must dispatch the creatures that we use in the quickest and most humane manner available. That includes the out-of-control eastern seal population. We have interceded to such an extent that only we, can correct those errors. The cod population will be in major peril from those cute an lovable seals if we do not. And sooner rather than later.
As far as elitism is concerned, perhaps we are the elite. And that being the case maybe we should show the way. Maybe we should seize the initiative and direct others through whatever means is available. I did not view the video – I didn’t have to! I have great respect for hunters because they appreciate where that cut of meat comes from. They also understand where shoe leather comes from. They are much better stewards of the land than the saps in the suburbs.
We have got to lean on those in power to stop the crap as described in the body of the article above. Thanks Jack for the opportunity.
I agree, CRB #23.