Tiger farming and traditional Chinese medicine
This interview originally aired March 15, 2010. The interview was transcribed by Jordan Schaul.The number of wild tigers has plummeted from 25,000-30,000 animals 50 years ago to around 3,200 today. A large part of the drop is from habitat loss and fragmentation. Tiger habitat has been reduced by 40 percent over the last decade, and tigers now occupy less than 7 percent of their historical range. Poaching has also contributed significantly to these dramatic population declines, particularly to supply parts for use in traditional medicine.
Tiger parts have been used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for centuries. Tiger bones treat ulcers, typhoid, malaria, dysentery, burns and even rheumatism. Other parts, like its whiskers, are worn as talismans or protective charms or used to sooth toothaches. Its penis is sold as a sexual tonic, and its skin is valued as a trophy or worn in clothing as a symbol of wealth.
Grace Ge Gabriel, Regional Director, IFAW Asia. Image courtesy of IFAW.
China has a domestic law to ban the tiger bone trade and it is a signatory of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which prohibits international commercial trade in tiger parts. However, critical legal "grey" areas exist, most notably the allowance of captive breeding. As a result, today China has over 6,000 captive-bred tigers living on tiger farms.
In her interview, Grace Ge Gabriel notes that, although the Chinese government has made significant efforts to reduce demand for tiger products by eliminating tiger bone from the official pharmacopeias, raising consumer awareness and identifying cheaper and more effective herbal alternatives to tiger bone for use in TCM, tiger farms threaten to reopen demand for tiger products by breeding tigers excessively, stockpiling tiger carcasses, and stoking demand by making and selling wine made from tiger bone.
Grace Ge Gabriel is the Asia Regional Director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). After joining IFAW in 1997, Grace established the IFAW China office which was the first and only animal welfare organization operating in Mainland China. There, she managed and directed an array of wildlife conservation campaigns and projects in China and Asia.
Tiger. Photo by Rhett A. Butler
For over a decade Grace has been actively involved in the global campaign to end the tiger trade and has personally investigated the illegal trade in tiger parts and derivatives. She's led IFAW's China program which provides strategic support to the organization's overall mission of reducing commercial exploitation of wildlife, preserving wildlife habitat, and helping animals in crisis and distress. She's spearheaded numerous campaigns, including those to protect Tibetan antelope, reduce trade of wildlife and products, including bears, tigers, elephants and others and also campaigns that improve the status of companion animals through legislation and education. She's also been involved in projects to conserve Asian elephant habitat, provide emergency relief to animals in disasters, and helped establish China's first raptor rescue center. Grace was born and grew up in China. She received her degrees in journalism and communications both in China and the United States. She's fluent in both Mandarin Chinese and English.
Laurel Neme: What is the importance of the tiger in Chinese culture?
Grace Ge Gabriel: There are two animals in Chinese culture that are very, very significant: one is the dragon and one is the tiger.
Laurel Neme: What do they symbolize?
Grace Ge Gabriel: They both symbolize strength, power, beauty and charm. The difference is [that the] tiger is an animal that's a real animal and it is still an existing animal. The tiger is also in the Chinese zodiac. Every 12 years a tiger year comes along, and in fact we just got into a new year of the tiger. Particularly in the year of the tiger a lot of people would want to have children born in The Year of the Tiger because it is a very auspicious year, it is a very auspicious symbol. Tiger images were written in Chinese literature and in Chinese art. It's very significant. It is part of the Asian culture, and it's not just Chinese. The tiger is a species that only existed in Asia. It's kind of a pride of the Asian continent.
Laurel Neme: What is the conservation status of tigers? You said tigers exist only in Asia. How many are there, and what kinds are there?
Grace Ge Gabriel: Estimates a century ago said there are probably about 100,000 tigers that range across Asia all the way to the Caspian Sea... Now, their habitat has shrunk to less than 7% of their original range and the numbers have been declining drastically, particularly in the last ten years [when] tiger numbers have come down to perhaps 3,200 left in the wild.
Laurel Neme: Where are they and what are the remaining subspecies?
Tiger. Photo by Rhett A. Butler
Grace Ge Gabriel: There are still tigers in 13 range states in Asia and the remaining subspecies are scattered in these range states from Russia's Far East to [areas] bordering with China, to South East Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand), to South Asia (Bhutan, Myanmar, India, Malaysia, Indonesia)... There is the Bengal tiger, in India (which may have about half of the remaining wild tiger population) and Nepal, … Indo-Chinese tiger in Southern China bordering with Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, … and also the Amur tiger. A lot of people know Amur tiger by their other name, Siberian tiger, but they really don't live in Siberia, per se...
Laurel Neme: What factors contribute to the tiger's decline?
Grace Ge Gabriel: Tigers are threatened by habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. As I said the tiger's range has shrunk to less than 7 percent of it's historical domain and a lot of its habitat is cut-off, fragmented, by agriculture development activities, and so that is one of the big threats to tigers. And another threat is loss of prey. As top predators tigers rely on a lot of hoofed animals, ungulates, to survive, and because in a lot of the forest hoofed animals are being hunted or poached and people kill them, tigers lost their prey. If they don't have enough food, of course, they can't survive. And another more direct and I believe a more menacing threat to tigers is poaching of tigers for the trade in parts and derivatives.
Laurel Neme: What are tigers used for? Why are they poached so much?
Tiger range. Image courtesy of IFAW.
Grace Ge Gabriel: Because one of the tiger's attributes is power and strength, historically tiger bone was used in traditional Chinese medicine. Three thousand years ago, for instance, Chinese medicine's Materia Medica included tiger bone as an ingredient for treating illnesses such as rheumatism. But since the 1990s China has banned the use of tiger bone in traditional Chinese medicine and has taken tiger bone off the Materia Medica and also taken off tiger bone off of the traditional Chinese medicine college curriculum. The Chinese government actually has conducted public awareness campaigns and targeted the TCM industry to dissuade the use of tiger bone, and that has effectively contained the market in China, at least the market for using tiger bone in traditional Chinese medicine.
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