The Tiger Farm
Very distressing to read - and I suspect that The Guardian chose not to publish many of Jonathan Watts's pictures. More evidence that many Chinese have scant regard for the world we live in and the things we share it. It's not just about 'spectacular' animals such as tigers, it's a wider malaise that affects the air we all breathe and the water we all drink.
Not only this, but a shocking BBC documentary on the failure of Project Tiger to boot. Thousands of tiger skins sold to Tibet (though the ignorant buyers swiftly u-turned when the Dalai Lama issued an edict) and the bones all off to China for TCM.
The sheer irresponsibility is amazing. The effect that 1.3 billion people with a similar mindset could have, especially if they get they way and wriggle out of international conventions, is simply terrifying.
I can hear the excuses now. One China: one rule for us and another for the rest of you. Not as unlike America as they'd like to think.
The park is part farm, part zoo and part circus. Its nursery is the start of a production line that churns out hundreds of tigers each year and ends in the freezer packed with carcasses. In between, most animals spend their lives in hundreds of tiny cages that are lined up in rows around the perimeter wall, each jammed with as many as four animals, which lie around listlessly or pace back and forth between wire and concrete.
More fortunate beasts share a few football pitch-sized enclosures in the main visitor area. Others are trained to perform in the Dream Theatre - a circus where they jump through flaming hoops - or in an outdoor show that also has monkeys riding camels and a bear cycling across a highwire without a safety net.
