Listen, this is the 5th time I have been asking you now. All I am asking is to provide any evidence, any evidence, any publication or evidence showing that private farmers have increased the Tigers polution. If you know all this so much, you must have read it from somewhere...right?
You don't feel like you have to prove that tiger farming, right here and right now, increases the pressure on wild populations. I've already shown you how it decreases pressure, when it makes tiger parts much more easily accessible from the farms than from the wild, with no fear of being put in jail or fined.
Also, if they are going to die out in the wild anyway, they can only benefit from being farmed and kept as pets. True, they aren't the easiest pets to keep, but they give a lot of joy to a lot of people and it would be a shame to lose them. We can't waste them being particular about how we save them.
NO! Private farmers have never increased the tiger population. Now you have definite answer. By definition, farmers cultivate their land to grow crops or raise livestock. If they raise livestock, tigers would kill the livestock. Therefore they would be most inclined to prevent the killing of their livestock and their livelihood by preventing the intrusion of tigers. Why would you think otherwise?
"The Asian black market is great for grizzly-bear poaching. For centuries bear parts have been used in Asia to treat haemorrhoids, convulsions and diabetes. According to the World Wildlife Fund, South Korea is believed to be the largest trader of bear parts in the world. One bear's gall bladder can be sold in Seoul for as much as $64,000. Smart Taiwanese restaurants serve bear paws on a plate for caviar-plus prices. The bear is like a walking bank account for poachers." Kill the butterfly., Economist, 00130613, 4/8/95, Vol. 335, Issue 7909
Valich, we were talking about farmers who farm the tigers. Those are the "private farmers" that Chatha was talking about. The tigers are their livestock. I have no idea by what logic he thinks that those farmers can't increase the number of living tigers. Also, if you were following this thread, you would have seen mention of the methods for extracting bear bile from captive bears without killing them. They probably aren't the bears favorite thing, but it does ease pressure on wild populations.
Sorry. Thanks for the update. I've only been "poking" into this thread on and off and have not read all the posts. Still, I stand behind what you say. Tigers (tiger farmers) have been bred in captivity. Google "Tigers bred in captivity" and you'll get 90 links on tigers bred in captivity, along with their differences in habitat and ecological requirements. "Zoologists from the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences and northeast China's Heilongjiang Province are set to test more than 300 tigers at the Hengdaohezi tiger breeding center....Founded in 1986, the center has developed into China's largest breeding center for Siberian tigers, with the number of the bred tigers increasing to 300 currently from the original eight." http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-09/30/content_268976.htm "Most white tigers bred in captivity are generic tigers, that is, a hybrid of two subspecies — most commonly, a mix of Bengal and Siberian ancestry." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_tiger
The generic tiger may well be the salvation of the spcies. I read that somewhere. It also sounds like, from that information, that there are ways around the inbreeding problem. What I think that species survival plans in America lack is the ability to work with large enough numbers of animals. If it takes a million dollars worth of porkbarrel per animal just to have the animal, zoos aren't going to have a hell of a lot of animals, and it takes a hell of a lot of animals to keep a viable gene pool going. Reading between the lines it seems possible to have a viable gene pool from largely inbred animals, but it also seems to require a large number of births for this to happen at all. Did you know, Valich, that the recombination of DNA in each new individual creates a large number of genetically distinct individuals from the same parents? The male and female gametes have combined to form a new individual. When the DNA unzips again to produce new gametes, it doesn't split along the same lines. The new individual doesn't produce gametes that are always the same as the ones it got from its parents and all the gametes it produces are not just two types as in George Mendel's genetics. What appears to be the same gene is not the exact same sequence of DNA. The trouble is that there will be an awful lot of culls on the way to producing a genetically varied population again. My comprehension of the molecular biology involved is a bit limited, but it seems very easy to get into a breeding program that is self-defeating if the planners try to dance around and get just a little bit pregnant. You need numbers if you want to try any breeding program with or without the inbreeding problem. If you breed large numbers of individuals from a single pair of parents you still have many genetically distinct individuals at a molecular level even if they look like only a very few types at a superficial level. Then you will have many pairs whose genes will combine safely and many pairs who won't. If on the other hand outbreeding is practiced until the entire population has swapped every gene, there could easily be less genetic variety left than if they had practiced inbreeding to begin with. Outbreeding too soon mixes the genes before there is time for them to diverge from one another at the molecular level, and yes, two genes that seem to do the same thing can be different at the molecular level. In other words, outbreeding can reduce genetic variety and become inbreeding. Maybe the problems come when not enough individuals are produced each generation. That limits genetic variety even further because, as I said, each individual produced by a breeding pair is distinct from one another. If a pair is only permitted one or two babies, we don't get nearly as many distinct genomes. We don't get nearly as many chances that the next generation will produce babies with fewer defects. I shouldn't even have to say that in theory a breeding center should be able to start with 8 and end up with 300 viable specimens. Experiment with any set of animals should be able to tell us that. It would be nice just to be able to take the word of the Chinese for this one. Not that it changes anything, they will do what they want. The animal rights people want to tell us that such efforts are doomed to failure from the start, and that's one of their big lies. They wouldn't know anyway and their definition of the word "failure" is different from anyone else's definition because if a program succeeds, in their eyes it's still a failure because the appropriate asses weren't kissed, the appropriate sacrifices weren't made to Ms. Newkirk, and it was something that was done by man, not by nature, and that last if very literal. They condemn every effort made by humans to do something about the destruction of animals, successful or unsuccessful. They are the ultimate nosey bastards who look down their noses at everything. If any alleged animal loving organization has this attitude, they should be ignored and driven away from any policy-making sessions. Lord knows they do that to others as much as they can, and pretend that it's because they are driven by a "moral" cause.
What is really sickening is all these people who say that they are defenders of wildlife who want to ban possession and breeding. They are the ones most responsible for reducing the numbers of those animals, like lions, tigers, and wolves. One of them has the unmitigated gall to complain that people from outside Florida are trying to preserve the rights of Florida citizens to own big cats, while she pushes efforts to get them banned in all 50 states. She also encourages the actions of IFAW, which is not even based in the United States. She is a damned hypocrite and an animal rights terrorist. I will not name her, the godawful person gets far too much publicity as it is. I think that a lot of people work with her and work for her without taking into account just how horrible she has been to owners of big cats and other animals.
Come on, Chatha. Face the righteous rage that IFAW has earned in its campaign to destroy animals. I am so sick of people like you who try to bamboozle the rest of us into believing your garbage.
Chatha, a lot of people have tried to preserve all kinds of animal species and you are obviously at the forefront of the effort to stop them from doing it. Your organization has walked over and hurt a lot of people, trampled civil rights, lied to legislatures, sneaked around, and done everything it takes to stop people from preserving the lives of tigers and other animals. What do you have to say for yourself? Your campaigns depend on the fact that a lot of people are not aware of what your organization does. You have to lie to get your way. You have to hide and deceive people. There is a lot of anger building up and I'm going to direct it at you, IFAW, PETA, and every other damned nutjob animal rights organization that has been doing this kind of nasty work.
I only had to read halfway through this thread to encounter one topic on which I can speak. What you're saying is by no means universally true about dogs. While it's true that almost all dogs appreciate a little fresh air and some outdoor smells, you can say the same thing about people. Yet despite what you imply in your question, most people in the Western countries are quite happy to be "locked up in a building" for 5/6 of their lives. My wife and I raise Lhasa Apsos, which are the ultimate couch-potato breed. I take the ones I have here out for a 45 minute walk two or three times a week and all three of us are quite satisfied with that. The rest of the week they're happy to spend five minutes running a few laps around our postage-stamp sized townhouse yard and then beg to come back inside, and I get my own exercise on a treadmill and my solar-spectrum light on the brief stroll from the subway station to my office. We are a thoroughly urban-adapted family and we're perfectly healthy for it both physically and emotionally. Some dog breeds have been developed to be active--hunting deer, rousting vermin, herding sheep, or chasing frisbees. But many others are temperamentally suited to be "sleeve dogs." All right, now I'm going to continue reading to see if anyone has either made or disagreed with my twenty years of observations of domesticated parrots...
Okay, nobody mentioned parrots. But first, I don't see anyone here talking about "the elephant in the room," as it were. The fact that the major factor in species decline is, in many important cases, habitat shrinkage. Most populations of tigers live precisely in regions in which the human population is exploding, like Indonesia and India. If you have fewer acres of tiger habitat, you're going to have fewer tigers, no matter how well you "protect" them. The future of species like this is going to have a large factor of captivity or outright domestication. There's no way to avoid it short of installing a Chinese-style despotic government, with draconian enforcement of a one-child policy, in some other really large countries. (A policy which wasn't even entirely successful in China.) We are going to have to learn how to breed these animals amid human populations, and keep both species happy, healthy, and prolific. Whether we all like it or not. Some things aren't Right or Wrong, they just Are. Which brings me to parrots. Two of the most commmonly displayed Poster Children of the endangered species movement are the Hyacinthine Macaw of South America and the Black Palm Cockatoo of New Guinea. It is absolutely true that both of these species are endangered... in the wild. The Hyacinth is losing ground to deforestation of the Amazon, and the Palm is dying off because of an epidemic that's spreading through the rainforest. Guess what? American psittaculturists--good old fashioned red blooded commercial parrot breeders--have saved the day. The Hyacinth is the world's largest parrot (with the exception of the flightless kakapo of New Zealand, which may already have been killed off by dogs and cats) and is therefore quite popular as a pet. With a price tag of $5000, breeders worked day and night to learn how to get these birds to reproduce in captivity, and a sustainable domestic population was established in the early 1990s. Today there are almost surely more Hyacinthine Macaws in American living rooms than in the entire rainforest. Yes of course they are domesticated, imprinted on humans, behaving like members of the family, going for car rides, playing tug-of-war with the family dog, watching TV, learning to mimic speech, discovering the flavor of oatmeal and pork chops, having a plethora of incredible experiences that their ancestors in Brazil could never have dreamed of. Is this worse than living a primitive, survival-obsessed life with no medical care in the jungle? Unfortunately we can't ask that question of the wild birds because they haven't learned to speak yet but the domestic birds all appear to be having the time of their lives. If you're not sure, ask your dog if he'd rather be out shivering in the snow, trying to catch enough rabbits to avoid starving, racked with parasites, or sleeping on your bed, playing with your kids, and eating dog biscuits. The Black Palm, on the other hand is simply a beautiful bird and people love them and are willing to pay thousands of dollars for one. This species took a little longer, but about ten years ago a commercial breeder in Minnesota finally managed to establish a breeding aviary that was not infected with the deadly illness that is sweeping New Guinea. At this point the USA has a viable population of the species, and it's safely dispersed around the country so one outbreak of a new disease won't kill the whole flock. You can't walk into a pet shop and buy a Palm Cockatoo but if you're serious enough you can find someone who has a breeding pair you can visit not too far from your home. Getting back to tigers, Siegfried and Roy mastered the art of breeding them in captivity. One of the things people had to learn is that declawing tigers ruins them for breeding. An important element of their mating ritual is digging their claws into each other and releasing certain endorphins in the process. S&R have even bred white tigers in captivity, which no one had ever done before. All of these things are possible. Animal husbandry is a science and like any science we just have to be diligent and patient and learn what needs to be done to succeed. There's no reason that elephants can't be bred in captivity, they just need a lot more space than captive elephants are normally allocated. If you make it commercially profitable to breed elephants, some guy with a 10,000 acre ranch in Texas will enclose it in twenty-foot-high steel-reinforced concrete walls and turn it into an elephant ranch. Cut Michael Jackson some slack and get those stupid parents to stop sending their kids over to play at his house, and before you know it he'll probably be breeding elephants. Somebody said in an earlier post that what needs to be done with tigers could only be done in America. Well hey, bring 'em on! We love animals over here and we have lots of room for them. We're no good at building cars or software. We might as well be the world's tiger and elephant breeders!
It's really funny that Chatha said that breeding tigers could only be done in America. Thailand and China are doing it successfully. Someone needs to clear away one piece of obvious bullshit: Breeding tigers or other animals does not mean that more will have to be taken from the wild. It isn't right to outlaw breeding, a highly ethical activity, to indirectly discourage the unlicensed capture of wild animals, which would be illegal regardless. This is one more way to make the claim that law-abiding citizens, by exercising their rights, are contributing to something illegal and unethical. I'm sorry, people, there is no legal activity that does not have its black market or environmental consequences. They're using the bad to try to get rid of the good, which is exactly backwards and highly profitable. The right way, which doesn't generate billions of dollars in government grants and doesn't generate so much hand-wringing, is to use the good to overcome the bad. Breeding animals in captivity overcomes the damage caused by taking them from the wild. It also overcomes the damage caused by poaching and habitat destruction. I've been saying for a while that if we are going to live where the wild animals live, we have the absolute obligation to allow them to live where we live. This is what animal rights people would be fighting for if they were anything but the destructive phonies that they are. PETA and IFAW and PAWS are for animal rights the way that George Orwell's Ministry of Truth is for telling the truth, which means not in the least. They do not fight for the rights of any animals to exist. Some animals are more equal than others (Orwell's Animal Farm). They fight against effective methods of preservation, and as I've been saying, and thanks go to Fraggle Rocker for saying it, we have exactly one proven method of preservation. I know for a fact that lions, tigers, wolves, and cougars enjoy living in basements, garages, even small pens, as long as they get adequate care, and of course anything that improves on that is gravy. One thing that is embittering sanctuary owners is when they are forced to kiss animal rights ass. They know that no matter what they do to make a better environment, AR people will find fault and use that fault to threaten to shut them down. This is a sickening situation that has to stop. We do love the animals. We need more people to tell each other how good it is to have them around. The problems are tolerable. The rewards are far greater than the risks. Also, we need to face down the animal rights zealots once and for all. They are, if not the biggest cause of death of non-humans, definitely among the top ten, and they always go after the animals that people want to keep. I think that they even use those animals in strange rituals, like those piles of mutilated dogs and cats found near PETA headquarters. Fraggle Rocker, I would definitely as soon be a breeder of big cats as anything. I could also renovate cars in my spare time, but I like the tigers better than I do cars. They're cleaner also Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I didn't even know about the IFAW before I started this thread, and what evidence do you have that I am even on their side. There are pleny of other Tiger organizations out there that have good rap sheet and evidence in their Tiger conservation efforts. A few of them are- Siberian Tiger Conservation Association, Bandhavgarh Tiger Trust India ,The Corbett Foundation ,Project Tiger ,Ranthambhore Foundation ,The Tiger Foundation ,TRAFFIC India ,The Wildlife Conservation Society, Wildlife Institute of India ,Wildlife Protection Society of India, WWF -World Wide Fund for Nature, Tiger heaven Australia. These organizations are more than capable of breeding captive Tigers without having to give them away to Private assholes. FACT-This Arguement doesn't even make sense because NGO's are the same as private Tiger farmers. 99% of all private Tiger farmers belong to one organization or the other, and those that don't are shady. There is a lot more transparency in organizations. FACT-There's also no such thing as "one individual" for breeding. You need a male and a female, and sometimes they don't work out. You also have to account for diseases, inbreeding, and theft. And when there don't work out you order for new ones. FACT- Your main arguement is that Tigers are safer in cages. Well, NGO's and Government programs also keep Tigers in Cages. Some of them can't afford large enclosures. FACT- Even the United States you are constantly refering to has no guarantees. The United States has had problems with the population of Panthers, mountain lions, and gray wolves. The United States isn't exactly tip top either, its not as if they don't have their own problems, but I just prefer them because I want to hold an optimistic view. I really don't care about this arguement. If you can prove to me that private farming in Asia works, I will include the material in my letter. -World Wildlife http://worldwildlife.org/wildplaces/sfla/wildlife.cfm The debate on Wolves, and habitat of wolves http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/intermed/inter_mgmt/endangered.asp
Did you know that tigers can and will use a litterbox? It is hard to teach them not to spray, though.
That makes sense. Lions spend most their day sleeping and lounging around, and only hunting for food for about 4 hours when hungry. Tigers likely too. Though I would imagine they'd enjoy a good walk around the park every now and again, much like dogs. However, even dogs become vicious cooped up, and I'd hate to encounter my friend's pet Tiger by accident, or have it escape the house the way dogs sometime escape. Lots of rules need to be in place for large pets like that, to protect other members of society.
It doesn't take lots of rules, Walter. It takes the usual torts and liability. No privately owned big cat has ever escaped and killed anyone in the U.S. I don't know of any injuries, either. It is wrong in principle to shut down my operation because you think it might threaten you, when in normal circumstances it causes no threat. You talk about a type of incident that has not happened ever in the U.S. with any privately owned big cat. You don't have the right to outlaw what I want because you think that something might happen that has never happened before in U.S. history. The constitution is in place to protect citizens from such bad legislation.
