The Journal of Economic Perspectives calls this a ‘discussion starter’.
Barun Mitra discusses Saving the Tiger: China and India Move in Radically Different Directions. Since the 1970s, India has enacted tough laws and mobilized huge resources to stop hunting and trading in tiger parts. But the policy of prohibition has not secured the future of tigers. Meanwhile, in China, special tiger breeding bases have been set up under public and private management. More than 4,000 tigers are in captivity in China today, and an effort is underway to build a genetic profile of every tiger in captivity so that the number of pure subspecies can be documented and increased. This will enable breeders to meet the international demand for pure-bred tiger cubs and young adults of particular subspecies. PERC Reports, September 2006, pp. 36.
I contacted the WWF (or somebody like that, I can’t remember exactly, it was so long ago) suggesting that they mount a covert campaign leaking information that tigers were infected with AIDS, ebola, SARS, anything that would scare those who consumed tiger parts into reducing demand. It would take a considerable amount of effort and money but within a decade, if the campaign were strenuous enough, the demand should be reduced sufficiently that there would be little economic benefit in poachers killing wild tigers. Perhps somebody could start a blog campaign ?
I have nowt to say about it — I may try to read the article when I can — except that that picture is so cute I keep coming back just to look at it. I may be single handedly causing the traffic load which has been causing Jacques so many problems.
i think tigers are like so cute and like should not like be treated like meanly like yah!
I’m like . . . totally.
But then you were like, yah.
…and I’m, like, what-e-vah.
A tiger’s penis is worth more than its weight in gold in certain markets.
To a tiger of course it’s priceless.
I know, that’s like totally gross and stuff.
So I’m like aaaaawwwwww, liddle baby ti-gahs!
Oh yes. Except they grow up and literally eat you out of house and home. 15 pounds of meat a day. And if you’re slow, they won’t distinguish between the served and the served. Like irritable executives dining solo on junkets.
Unlike lions which apparently tend to be rather more sociable and amenable to irregular human-arranged catering arrangements. And I’ve heard tell that of the big cats, cheetahs are most easily habituded to human company.
But leopards – fuggedabout it. Those fuckers have been genetically evolved to bite primates in the back of the skull.
However, Siamese cats have been genetically evolved to complain about your choice of 50s musical on DVD.
Yes, that should read
Now I’ll go away and shed on all your pale clothing.