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November 22, 2008 6:56:24 AM CST

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Farming Tigers for Profit Best Way to Save Species

Posted Jun 22, 08 5:42 AM CDT in Opinion,  World 

(Newser) – Though animal conservationists hail the success of India's Jim Corbett National Park in increasing populations of endangered tigers, Kirk Leech complains in Spiked that numbers continue to decline—and that expanding protected areas for tigers harms indigenous human populations. His solution: for-profit tiger farms, where selling animal parts to meet unrelenting demand can finance more farms and better breeding to prevent extinction.

He points to China's 14 successful tiger farms. "We can romanticize the tiger if we wish, but we would be better off re-enchanting ourselves with our humanity," writes Leech. "As long as the poor live a hand-to-mouth existence based on subsistence agriculture, the priority should be to set aside land for people, not tigers."

Source Spiked

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"If we are so intent on saving the tiger," Kirk Leech writes, "then I%u2019d propose farms for tigers and not prisons for indigenous people."   (AP Photo)
"Commercial farming of tigers ... should be taken seriously," Kirk Leech says. "As long as the poor live a hand-to-mouth existence ... the priority should be to set aside land for people, not tigers."   (AP Photo)
Jim Corbett National Park in India has had great success in boosting its population of endangered tigers%u2014but often at the expense of native human populations, Kirk Leech writes.   (AP Photo)
A white tiger immerses itself in water as another relaxes in a shade to protect themselves from the heat at the Nandankanan Zoological park on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, India, Tuesday, April 22, 2008....   (AP Photo/Biswaranjan Rout)
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India • farming • conservation • tigers • animal rescue groups


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