Rare Siberian tigers starve to death at Chinese zoo

Saturday, 13 March 2010 06:30 PM Jay Salazar

Eleven Siberian tigers have died over the last three months at a zoo in northeastern China. The rare tigers had been kept at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in Liaoning Province.

China has about 5,000 Siberian tigers in captivity, which is a hundred times more than the number left in the wild.

Liu Xiaoqiang, a local wildlife protection official, said that malnutrition was the culprit, as the the tigers were apparently fed nothing but cheap chicken bones and were kept in very tiny cages, which restricted their movement and lowered their resistance, making them more susceptible to disease.

However, Wu Xi, a manager at the zoo, attributed the deaths solely to unspecified diseases, which were especially hard for the animals to endure because winter has been unusually harsh this year.

What is indisputable is that the tigers had been badly kept and ill-fed.

The Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo, which is currently closed, has been struggling financially for some time. During an interview with The Associated Press, a woman in charge of corporate planning for the zoo, who would only identify herself by the surname "Wang", said that the zoo had been withholding pay from the staff in order to feed the animals in its care.

She pointed out that the cost of the food for the tigers alone ran to RMB9,000 yuan (P60,185.46) a day, an amount that comes to nearly half the food allowance that the zoo receives from the local government.

The zoo had been up for auction for some time, but no bidders came forward, she added.

BBC News observed that the incident is likely to raise questions about the treatment of tigers in captivity in China, which is celebrating the year of the tiger this year.

Animal welfare groups say that not enough protection is given to tigers that are held in the zoos, wildlife parks, and farms of the country. Some activists have said that tiger farms may be deliberately breeding more animals than they can afford to keep, as there is a thriving black market for tiger parts, which are used in traditional medicines and liquor.

Tthe Chinese government banned the sale and use of tiger parts in medicine in 1993, and offenders face stiff sentences. Nevertheless, tiger bone, penis, pelts, and other parts continue to be sold illegally to consumers.

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