It Just Gets More Bizarre

I thought I'd read about most of the abuses of animals in the world, but this is a new one. A Chinese "farm" is home to 1,500 tigers whose ultimate end is for their bones to be used in making tiger wine bound for the Chinese folk medicine market. It's against the law in China to kill tigers, so the animals are bred and then fed just enough to keep them alive, with little or no medical care, until they die as adults. Their bones are then added to a potent rice wine to create tiger wine that sells for £60 ($92), £92 ($142), or £185 ($285) in three-, six-, and nine-year vintages. Most of the other tiger body parts are also harvested and sold for folk remedies.

I was aware of the huge market for wild animals parts for the Asian folk medicine market, but something on this scale—breeding tigers in deplorable circumstances in order to harvest their bones—was new to me. The story from London's Daily Mail, with pictures (not gory), is here.