Tim Worstall

The Coming Tiger Extinction

Here’s an interesting question. Just what should be done about the tiger?

Preliminary results from a major Indian government
census on the Bengal tiger show there may be as few as 1,500 left in
the wild with the species rapidly heading for extinction.

The scientific survey was ordered by the government in 2005 after it
emerged that one of India’s leading tiger reserves, Sariska in
Rajasthan, had been completely emptied of tigers, provoking a national
scandal.

I take this as making it obvious that the simple idea of banning anyone from killing them isn’t working. So what should be done?

The fate of the Indian tiger is also under further
threat from Chinese plans to re-open their domestic market in trade in
tiger parts, using farmed tigers which now number up to 5,000 in the
Chinese mainland.

A high-level delegation of
Chinese diplomats has been in New Delhi lobbying the Indian government
for support in lifting the ban ahead of a meeting of the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).


Supporters of the scheme say using farmed tigers will reduce demand for
illegal supplies of tiger which come mainly from poachers in India and
provide a viable long-term source of body parts for traditional Chinese
medicine.

However an international coalition of
35 of the world’s leading tiger conservation groups has condemned the
plans, saying it will have a precisely opposite effect – fuelling
demand, increasing poaching and hastening the demise of the species.

In a place (China) where people are allowed to own and farm the animals, there are the above 5,000 being farmed. There’s also (from memory) some 25,000 tigers in the US being kept as pets. In the wild in India, there’s the above 1,500.

Now which system is going to preserve the genome is a purely empirical question. What provides the largest number of animals? Legislation and regulation telling people that the tigers have no value to them (however great that value might be to society as a whole) or legislation allowing them to be property that can be profited from?

Looks like it’s property rights again, doesn’t it?

In

8 responses

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Let me give you an idea I know you will love – sell your mother’s kidneys and buy a new SUV with the proceeds. After all, if everything is liable to be treated as material property with trading value, why not make the best use of your loved ones too.
    Tim adds: Indeed. Interesting fact. The only country in the world (Iran) that has a legal paid market for human kidneys is also the only one with no waiting list for human kidneys.
    Amazing how well markets work, isn’t it?

    Reply
  2. Kit Avatar
    Kit

    Carpe Diem ran this story about African elephants:
    http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/03/save-elephants-buy-ivory.html
    “Kenyans are debating whether the Government should lift its 30-year ban on trophy hunting. While the talk continues, the elephant population in Kenya continues to drop.
    Meanwhile, elephant populations in countries such as Namibia and South Africa are increasing, a resurgence that is due surprisingly, in part, to trophy hunting. More importantly, our research in Namibia has found that as elephant populations rebound, so do the fortunes of the people.”

    Reply
  3. Mark Wadsworth Avatar
    Mark Wadsworth

    These bleeding heart tossers and their stupid tigers! If I were Indian I’d tell them that we’ll start protecting wild tigers as soon as the Europeans re-introduce the wolf, the brown bear and the wild boar.

    Reply
  4. Ed Avatar
    Ed

    sell your mother’s kidneys and buy a new SUV with the proceeds. After all, if everything is liable to be treated as material property with trading value, why not make the best use of your loved ones too.
    She may be your mother, but her kidneys belong to her. Surely you can only (theoretically) sell your mother’s kidneys in a society that does _not_ have strong private property rights?

    Reply
  5. Zorro Avatar
    Zorro

    We have wild boars around here in the south east…
    I’ve /love/ wolves and bears to be re-introduced!! I seem to remember there was a lot of talk recently about reintroducing wolves to the UK (Scotland probably) but as per usual a few frigging sheep farmers stuffed things up for the rest of us… Its not as if we have a bloody shortage of sheep is it?

    Reply
  6. W Avatar
    W

    And set up human farms too so that your country will never fall short of organs anymore.
    Your statement about Iran is laughable at best. You are probably ignorant of the fact that kidneys were stolen from thousands of poor people through rogue surgery and then sold in the legal market. A similar scandal occurred in India and Bangladesh too. Maybe now you will realize that “legal markets” and “farms” dont reduce demand for wild populations.
    In the absence of law enforcement, killing a wild animal is far cheaper (<1$ in developing countries) then farming them. So, wild populations will become extinct anyway and the plight of tigers will be no different then farmed chickens (actually worse, because there are still chickens left in the wild while no tigers will be left).
    The biggest decline in tiger population happened during the first 50 years of the last century. Funnily enough, those were times when it was legal to farm tigers and brutalize them however one wanted. Instead, no one did that but chose to kill them en masse in the wild. The Asian water buffalo was domesticated and farmed thousands of years ago but today less then 2000 survive in the wild. Bear farming is legal and widespread in China but there are barely any bears in China. And at the same time, poachers are decimating bear populations in Indian and South East Asian forests to supply cheap to the Chinese. I have lot of other points but I think I have said enough.
    In your way, the fight against extinction will be lost in a legal way. But, I think most people will take their chances fighting poachers and deforestation instead of submitting to deciet. You are not fooling anyone. The last thing India needs is inhuman and insensitive materialistic ideas that will destroy age old traditions of peaceful coexistance with nature and dehumanize animals.
    Tim adds: Re kidneys, then you’d better send on your findings to both WHO and The Economist because they think the Iranian market works just fine.
    As to wild versus farmed animals: you’re rather missing my point. Banning people from killing the wild animals does not, as India shows, actually work. They’re still being wiped out. I agree with you that it would be better if this were not the case but it is. Thus my support for farming.

    Reply
  7. W Avatar
    W

    So now you claim that kidneys are never stolen from people through rogue surgery. I hope your cozy armchair keeps you warm. The more time you spend in it, the better for everyone around because you seem to be a classic case of little knowledge big talk.
    > Banning people from killing the wild animals does not …. work.
    Holy smoke! What did you eat for breakfast? So you want India to legalize killing wild animals so that poaching can stop. I sense a severe breakdown in logic. And you want farms to flourish at the same time. Tsk Tsk! Take some rest, will you.

    Reply
  8. Lara Head Avatar
    Lara Head

    I would like to say that although I do not agree with reopening the trade on tigers simply because they are being raised on farms, I do not condemn you for the way you think. The economy is what drives this world.
    And actually if ecotourism was combined with reopening the trade market with farm raised tigers may drop the poaching rate on wild tigers dramatically as long as the government keeps a careful eye on farmed tiger prices.
    This is a very good thought. I do believe that many of the people here attacking this idea don’t think twice for eating that hamburger or chicken leg.
    Yes, tigers are endangered, but bigger fences and more guards are not going to save them. They need habitat and without ecotourism or an economical reason to give them that habitat, they are going to die from loss of habitat and prey, not poaching. Poaching is the least of their worries. With the tiger’s reproduction rate, they can make up poaching losses as long as they have food and habitat.
    Good point Tim.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from Tim Worstall

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading