10 ms·

Alarm as China eases 25-year ban on rhino and tiger parts

183 points by happy-go-lucky 8y ago

calgoo 8y ago
Well, we can see how well the Japanese are doing with their "scientific research" whale killing, which is really bad as they are using it as a excuse to continue the practice. Similar loopholes will be found here, for example: if i capture a rhino and send it to a farm for 1 week, is it now a animal that we can do "research" on? What about 1 month?
- qubax 8y ago
  > Well, we can see how well the Japanese are doing with their "scientific research" whale killing, which is really bad as they are using it as a excuse to continue the practice. The whales they research aren't endangered. Also, other nations and people hunt whales. > Similar loopholes will be found here, for example: if i capture a rhino and send it to a farm for 1 week, is it now a animal that we can do "research" on? What about 1 month? That's a possibility. But more likely, it'll create more tiger/rhino "farms". Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is debatable just like trophy hunting. Also, the threat to tigers and rhinos aren't poachers. It's loss of habitat due to human population growth. Where humans live in numbers, it's hard to have tigers and rhinos around because they can easily kill humans. It's why most tigers and rhinos in the world today are in zoos or wildlife enclosures.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    > Also, the threat to tigers and rhinos aren't poachers. Actually that's a big threat, sorry to burst your bubble, they're threatened by multiple different human factors.
  - daliusd 8y ago
    > The whales they research aren't endangered. Does it really matter? Number of countries agree not to whale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#International_Whaling_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#International_Whaling_...) and Japan is OK to do that? > Also, other nations and people hunt whales. Other people kill people as well. Should I be afraid of you?
    - tynpeddler 8y ago
      Yeah, it really matters if the whales that Japan is hunting are endangered. One is an ecological catastrophe, the other is safe harvesting of wildlife.
  - josefresco 8y ago
    "Also, other nations and people hunt whales." A grand total of ...two. And not at the scale of the Japanese. Iceland even exports whale meat to the Japanese because they don't eat enough of it. To top it off, Japan has to subsidize the "industry" (quotes used because Japan claims it's for research) because it's unprofitable. Sources: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729043-000-taxpayers-money-keeps-japans-whaling-fleet-afloat/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729043-000-taxpayer... https://www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/whales/which-countries-are-still-whaling https://www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/whales/which-cou... http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151203-why-do-some-countries-still-hunt-whales http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151203-why-do-some-countrie...
  - rdl 8y ago
    Is the problem with whaling that whales are endangered, or that they're "too intelligent"? If the latter, is there a similar issue with hunting non-human primates?
    - codezero 8y ago
      Many of these justifications are easily ended by just not killing any animals.
    - jschwartzi 8y ago
      The problem with whaling it's that whales are an important component of the ocean ecosystem, and killing most of the whales will have dire consequences. Cows and chickens are not part of the natural world and killing then to eat them has no effect other than ending an animal's life. It's not about endangerment, it's about recognizing that the earth is a fragile system that we're pushing closer to the edge with every extinction. We have a responsibility to our descendants to take care of their planet for them until they can arrive.
      - tynpeddler 8y ago
        >It's not about endangerment, it's about recognizing that the earth is a fragile system that we're pushing closer to the edge with every extinction. We have a responsibility to our descendants to take care of their planet for them until they can arrive. Except this literally doesn't apply to Japan. The whales Japan is hunting are not endangered, and there is no proposed mechanism whereby Japan's whale hunting causes ecological harm. The IWC's own scientists recommended the whale hunting moratorium be removed around 1994.
        rdl 8y ago
        If people think whales shouldn't be killed for moral/aesthetic/religious/whatever reasons, and can convince everyone else to agree (presumably at the level of nation states), that's fine even if they're not all endangered or critical to the ecosystem. I just want people to be honest about why they don't want it.
  - uremog 8y ago
    > Also, other nations and people hunt whales. Ah yes, the "two wrongs make a right" argument.
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  All you have to do is slip illegal rhino into the supply chain somewhere. It's not that difficult. Exactly what happened with the ivory market.
throwaway5752 8y ago
If you look at global warming, the global rise of fascism, and little things like this it's kind of difficult to avoid thinking someone is trying to orchestrate something very bad for the majority of human kind. "the State Council said powdered forms of rhino horn and bones from dead tigers could be used in "qualified hospitals by qualified doctors"." Conspiracy aside, this is impossible, since most of TCM is a nonsensical superstition and anyone using tiger or rhino parts as therapy is de facto unqualified as a doctor (or decent human). At least people will die or suffer for harming these animals, since this "treatment" won't impact the course of their diseases at all.
- jstanley 8y ago
  How is this specific thing "very bad for the majority of human kind"? It's very bad for rhinos and tigers, for sure.
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    This specific thing isn't, just taken against the broader backdrop of similar events and trends.
  - malloryerik 8y ago
    It's just a disgusting little ornament on the much larger birthday cake we've got baking in our oven. To the backdrop of mass die-offs, the rules preventing the extinction of rhinos and tigers are cut by a few power-hungry fools seeking the political support of a few greedy fools who will sell those animals' horns and bones as false cures to a few superstitious fools who believe these worthless tusks and bones have magical powers. It's such dark planetary tragicomedy -- with a focus on "tragic", a kind of satanic genius that even Mikhail Boulgakov couldn't have dreamed up, and it's real.
  - jrace 8y ago
    The idea that we can exploit and destroy a species for our own supposed and unproven benefit is very short sighted and shows we are not a species capable of living holistically with our world.
tw04 8y ago
We've got a president trying to actively dismantle the EPA and remove the protections on endangered species. We were the primary pressure being applied to China - why would they stop now? I would imagine some in the upper echelons of their government know that it's all completely bogus, but if it keeps the people happy, I doubt they care.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Your suspicion seems grounded in fact. Traditional Chinese medicine was pushed by Mao because there weren’t enough real doctors. He didn’t even believe in it, and I imagine the current leaders don’t either.
  - notyourday 8y ago
    And now it and other "natural" cures are being pushed by supposedly educated doctors. My wife showed up from PT with the signs of cupping. If you think that's bad, let me terrify you further: insurance company paid for it
    - joshstrange 8y ago
      Your comment confused me a little bit as it sounded like it was done without her knowing but I would think you would notice that. "Cupping", for those like me who had never heard of it, involves putting devices on your body (There are different sizes, shapes, and materials) that "suck" up some of your skin into the vessel. It's supposed to be good for you but stinks to high heaven of BS (and the lack of any evidence to prove it helps confirms that). You can google for the images (it's semi-NSFW).
      - notyourday 8y ago
        The concept that in NYC a licensed physical therapist working out of a medical office can peddle this shit as a medical procedure and bill it under health insurance is ridiculous.
Nursie 8y ago
Bye bye tigers. Stunning, beautiful creatures. Humanity as a while has decided you're more valuable as soup, or ground up into nostrums and magic potions than you are alive, prowling the wild. You're not the first and you won't be the last. It's shocking that this is still going on in the modern world.
stevespang 8y ago
Is it true, what I overheard in a crowded substation saying there is a huge increase in poisonings in China by righteous environmentalists pushing cyanide laced Rhino and Tiger powders into the Asian supply chain ?
sbussard 8y ago
Noooooo!! This is horrible news
narrator 8y ago
Everyone's got to work harder in the west so we can get back to dominating the earth such that we can impose our scientific value system on the superstitious heathen. /s All you guys going around saying Chinese traditional medicine is worthless are like all the diplomats flying in to Israel saying that the conflict with the Palestinians is just a land dispute and has nothing to do with religion. You don't believe in anyone's values but your own. Yeah, I like Rhinos and Tigers and if I had a button that said make sure I can keep seeing rhinos and tigers when I go to the zoo once a year, I'd push it, but if they disappeared my world and the world of most people would be largely unaffected except for watching t.v documentaries about it happening in countries I will never travel to. That's what majorly weirds me out about some animal rights issues. None of this stuff will ever have an impact on your day to day life ever, yet people care so intensely about it. How did we come to intensely value Tigers and Rhinos even though our only interaction with them throughout our life is a couple of minutes during occasional visits to the zoo?
- mikeash 8y ago
  The worth of traditional Chinese medicine isn’t a matter of values. It’s a simple factual question with a simple answer.
  - ElBarto 8y ago
    There's a lot of interests in the plants and fungi, or even some animal extracts, used in traditional Chinese medicine because they often do contain active chemicals that may be used. It's like traditional remedies in the West: The plants used usually really do have medicinal properties. (I'm not saying that a rhino horn has any useful properties, though...) Edit: What's wrong, guys?
    - Symbiote 8y ago
      Once a plant, fungus or animal extract is proven to work (or a compound isolated from it, and that proven to work) it is no longer "traditional medicine". It is simply "medicine". There is no evidence of any use for tiger penis or rhino horn.
DataWorker 8y ago
China is the number one threat to the US and to the future of the planet. We ignore it and trade with them out of pure greed. It’s immoral and there should be more sense of public shame. Doing business with China makes you an enemy of freedom and the environment. Doing business with them is no different than going out and poaching the endangered rhinos yourself.
- timerol 8y ago
  Doing business with China has also helped lift 500 million people out of extreme poverty in the past 35 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China
  - DataWorker 8y ago
    Some seem to think the goal of all humanity should be to “lift everyone out of poverty.” Even if it destroys the planet and leads to massive humanitarian crises and ever greater suffering, putting dollars in wallets, that’s the point of it all. Homo economicus.
    - antidesitter 8y ago
      When did lifting millions out of poverty lead to “massive humanitarian crises and ever greater suffering”? How callous and sheltered do you have to be to say something like that? Surely the absurdity of someone like you telling the world’s poor that they ought to stay poor doesn’t escape you?
      - biglenny 8y ago
        >How callous and sheltered do you have to be to say something like that? Keep the dialogue civil. It turns out that industrializing a society creates a lot of pollution. That pollution, as we've recently found out, is responsible for "the massive humanitarian crises and greater suffering" we are going to experience as impoverished nations continue to industrialize (ie. get lifted out of poverty). See: IPCC
vertline3 8y ago
Chinese Panda conservation is a kind of 'soft power'. Being a place with Tigers and Rhinos is large bragging rights that I think they would be Keen to hold. Chinese Medicine can be changed to exclude endangered animals if Chinese Govt are able to handpick religious leaders.
duxup 8y ago
I thought a lot of traditional Chinese culture got run over by the cultural revolution, but this stuff never did. I wonder why.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  Someone in another comment explained that Mao pushed it due to lack of real doctors.
  - duxup 8y ago
    Well that is appropriately disappointing.
    - ajmurmann 8y ago
      Thanks to the pointer and Google, I just "enjoyed" this very good article on the topic: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional-chinese-medicine/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional-chin...
- bgee 8y ago
  > I thought a lot of traditional Chinese culture got run over by the cultural revolution Asking as a Chinese myself, can you point to some examples? edit: improve formatting
  - duxup 8y ago
    I don't really know how to address questions when it comes to the answer of "that's just basic history". Maybe history is wrong but I'm always wary of being expected to make the case that it isn't...
    - bgee 8y ago
      What I meant was maybe you can help me by pointing out something in history that was very prosperous before Cultural Revolution but died right after (if I understand "run over" correctly).
ajmurmann 8y ago
Tragedy of the commons problems like environmental issues should really be the main reason for international conflict. It's depressing that it's not.
nepotism2018 8y ago
Surely China is looking to breed these animals locally rather than chase them around the world? like https://phasa.co.za/hunting-services/ https://phasa.co.za/hunting-services/
pastor_elm 8y ago
China recently re-banned Ivory after too much backlash. Makes sense they would open up a new market to placate the population that believes in this crap. Looks like Yao Ming has to come out of retirement again.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
solveq 8y ago
The ultra solution is to inject to these animals something harm to human, but no harm to themselves. Which can prevent people hunting them for money.
SteveGoob 8y ago
I have very mixed feelings about this. Let me explain: This move from China is definitely going to bring more incentive for illegal poaching. It's just simple economics: by officially bringing a market back, profits to be made are much greater, and people will find any way to get in on the action. If, however, if we provide more _legal_ means for people to benefit from the tiger and rhino markets, we could provide enough economic incentive for people to be invested in their survival. The big deal here would be the opportunity for private ownership (rhino and tiger 'farms' basically). People will viciously protect what's theirs from poachers and ensure it's continued existence, especially if there is money to be made by doing so. If people are allowed to privately own, breed, and sell their tigers and rhinos, I think China's move could actually _facilitate recovery_ for both species. But is that what China's planning to do? I doubt it given their track record and political philosophies, which means this is going to only make the extinction of tigers and rhino's a bigger problem.

Well, we can see how well the Japanese are doing with their "scientific research" whale killing, which is really bad as they are using it as a excuse to continue the practice. Similar loopholes will be found here, for example: if i capture a rhino and send it to a farm for 1 week, is it now a animal that we can do "research" on? What about 1 month?

qubax 8y ago
> Well, we can see how well the Japanese are doing with their "scientific research" whale killing, which is really bad as they are using it as a excuse to continue the practice. The whales they research aren't endangered. Also, other nations and people hunt whales. > Similar loopholes will be found here, for example: if i capture a rhino and send it to a farm for 1 week, is it now a animal that we can do "research" on? What about 1 month? That's a possibility. But more likely, it'll create more tiger/rhino "farms". Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is debatable just like trophy hunting. Also, the threat to tigers and rhinos aren't poachers. It's loss of habitat due to human population growth. Where humans live in numbers, it's hard to have tigers and rhinos around because they can easily kill humans. It's why most tigers and rhinos in the world today are in zoos or wildlife enclosures.
- Nursie 8y ago
  > Also, the threat to tigers and rhinos aren't poachers. Actually that's a big threat, sorry to burst your bubble, they're threatened by multiple different human factors.
- daliusd 8y ago
  > The whales they research aren't endangered. Does it really matter? Number of countries agree not to whale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#International_Whaling_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#International_Whaling_...) and Japan is OK to do that? > Also, other nations and people hunt whales. Other people kill people as well. Should I be afraid of you?
  - tynpeddler 8y ago
    Yeah, it really matters if the whales that Japan is hunting are endangered. One is an ecological catastrophe, the other is safe harvesting of wildlife.
- josefresco 8y ago
  "Also, other nations and people hunt whales." A grand total of ...two. And not at the scale of the Japanese. Iceland even exports whale meat to the Japanese because they don't eat enough of it. To top it off, Japan has to subsidize the "industry" (quotes used because Japan claims it's for research) because it's unprofitable. Sources: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729043-000-taxpayers-money-keeps-japans-whaling-fleet-afloat/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729043-000-taxpayer... https://www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/whales/which-countries-are-still-whaling https://www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/whales/which-cou... http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151203-why-do-some-countries-still-hunt-whales http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151203-why-do-some-countrie...
- rdl 8y ago
  Is the problem with whaling that whales are endangered, or that they're "too intelligent"? If the latter, is there a similar issue with hunting non-human primates?
  - codezero 8y ago
    Many of these justifications are easily ended by just not killing any animals.
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    The problem with whaling it's that whales are an important component of the ocean ecosystem, and killing most of the whales will have dire consequences. Cows and chickens are not part of the natural world and killing then to eat them has no effect other than ending an animal's life. It's not about endangerment, it's about recognizing that the earth is a fragile system that we're pushing closer to the edge with every extinction. We have a responsibility to our descendants to take care of their planet for them until they can arrive.
    - tynpeddler 8y ago
      >It's not about endangerment, it's about recognizing that the earth is a fragile system that we're pushing closer to the edge with every extinction. We have a responsibility to our descendants to take care of their planet for them until they can arrive. Except this literally doesn't apply to Japan. The whales Japan is hunting are not endangered, and there is no proposed mechanism whereby Japan's whale hunting causes ecological harm. The IWC's own scientists recommended the whale hunting moratorium be removed around 1994.
      - rdl 8y ago
        If people think whales shouldn't be killed for moral/aesthetic/religious/whatever reasons, and can convince everyone else to agree (presumably at the level of nation states), that's fine even if they're not all endangered or critical to the ecosystem. I just want people to be honest about why they don't want it.
- uremog 8y ago
  > Also, other nations and people hunt whales. Ah yes, the "two wrongs make a right" argument.
pastor_elm 8y ago
All you have to do is slip illegal rhino into the supply chain somewhere. It's not that difficult. Exactly what happened with the ivory market.

throwaway5752 8y ago

If you look at global warming, the global rise of fascism, and little things like this it's kind of difficult to avoid thinking someone is trying to orchestrate something very bad for the majority of human kind. "the State Council said powdered forms of rhino horn and bones from dead tigers could be used in "qualified hospitals by qualified doctors"." Conspiracy aside, this is impossible, since most of TCM is a nonsensical superstition and anyone using tiger or rhino parts as therapy is de facto unqualified as a doctor (or decent human). At least people will die or suffer for harming these animals, since this "treatment" won't impact the course of their diseases at all.

jstanley 8y ago
How is this specific thing "very bad for the majority of human kind"? It's very bad for rhinos and tigers, for sure.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  This specific thing isn't, just taken against the broader backdrop of similar events and trends.
- malloryerik 8y ago
  It's just a disgusting little ornament on the much larger birthday cake we've got baking in our oven. To the backdrop of mass die-offs, the rules preventing the extinction of rhinos and tigers are cut by a few power-hungry fools seeking the political support of a few greedy fools who will sell those animals' horns and bones as false cures to a few superstitious fools who believe these worthless tusks and bones have magical powers. It's such dark planetary tragicomedy -- with a focus on "tragic", a kind of satanic genius that even Mikhail Boulgakov couldn't have dreamed up, and it's real.
- jrace 8y ago
  The idea that we can exploit and destroy a species for our own supposed and unproven benefit is very short sighted and shows we are not a species capable of living holistically with our world.

tw04 8y ago

We've got a president trying to actively dismantle the EPA and remove the protections on endangered species. We were the primary pressure being applied to China - why would they stop now? I would imagine some in the upper echelons of their government know that it's all completely bogus, but if it keeps the people happy, I doubt they care.

mikeash 8y ago
Your suspicion seems grounded in fact. Traditional Chinese medicine was pushed by Mao because there weren’t enough real doctors. He didn’t even believe in it, and I imagine the current leaders don’t either.
- notyourday 8y ago
  And now it and other "natural" cures are being pushed by supposedly educated doctors. My wife showed up from PT with the signs of cupping. If you think that's bad, let me terrify you further: insurance company paid for it
  - joshstrange 8y ago
    Your comment confused me a little bit as it sounded like it was done without her knowing but I would think you would notice that. "Cupping", for those like me who had never heard of it, involves putting devices on your body (There are different sizes, shapes, and materials) that "suck" up some of your skin into the vessel. It's supposed to be good for you but stinks to high heaven of BS (and the lack of any evidence to prove it helps confirms that). You can google for the images (it's semi-NSFW).
    - notyourday 8y ago
      The concept that in NYC a licensed physical therapist working out of a medical office can peddle this shit as a medical procedure and bill it under health insurance is ridiculous.

Nursie 8y ago

Bye bye tigers. Stunning, beautiful creatures. Humanity as a while has decided you're more valuable as soup, or ground up into nostrums and magic potions than you are alive, prowling the wild. You're not the first and you won't be the last. It's shocking that this is still going on in the modern world.

stevespang 8y ago

Is it true, what I overheard in a crowded substation saying there is a huge increase in poisonings in China by righteous environmentalists pushing cyanide laced Rhino and Tiger powders into the Asian supply chain ?

sbussard 8y ago

Noooooo!! This is horrible news

narrator 8y ago

Everyone's got to work harder in the west so we can get back to dominating the earth such that we can impose our scientific value system on the superstitious heathen. /s All you guys going around saying Chinese traditional medicine is worthless are like all the diplomats flying in to Israel saying that the conflict with the Palestinians is just a land dispute and has nothing to do with religion. You don't believe in anyone's values but your own. Yeah, I like Rhinos and Tigers and if I had a button that said make sure I can keep seeing rhinos and tigers when I go to the zoo once a year, I'd push it, but if they disappeared my world and the world of most people would be largely unaffected except for watching t.v documentaries about it happening in countries I will never travel to. That's what majorly weirds me out about some animal rights issues. None of this stuff will ever have an impact on your day to day life ever, yet people care so intensely about it. How did we come to intensely value Tigers and Rhinos even though our only interaction with them throughout our life is a couple of minutes during occasional visits to the zoo?

mikeash 8y ago
The worth of traditional Chinese medicine isn’t a matter of values. It’s a simple factual question with a simple answer.
- ElBarto 8y ago
  There's a lot of interests in the plants and fungi, or even some animal extracts, used in traditional Chinese medicine because they often do contain active chemicals that may be used. It's like traditional remedies in the West: The plants used usually really do have medicinal properties. (I'm not saying that a rhino horn has any useful properties, though...) Edit: What's wrong, guys?
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    Once a plant, fungus or animal extract is proven to work (or a compound isolated from it, and that proven to work) it is no longer "traditional medicine". It is simply "medicine". There is no evidence of any use for tiger penis or rhino horn.

DataWorker 8y ago

China is the number one threat to the US and to the future of the planet. We ignore it and trade with them out of pure greed. It’s immoral and there should be more sense of public shame. Doing business with China makes you an enemy of freedom and the environment. Doing business with them is no different than going out and poaching the endangered rhinos yourself.

timerol 8y ago
Doing business with China has also helped lift 500 million people out of extreme poverty in the past 35 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China
- DataWorker 8y ago
  Some seem to think the goal of all humanity should be to “lift everyone out of poverty.” Even if it destroys the planet and leads to massive humanitarian crises and ever greater suffering, putting dollars in wallets, that’s the point of it all. Homo economicus.
  - antidesitter 8y ago
    When did lifting millions out of poverty lead to “massive humanitarian crises and ever greater suffering”? How callous and sheltered do you have to be to say something like that? Surely the absurdity of someone like you telling the world’s poor that they ought to stay poor doesn’t escape you?
    - biglenny 8y ago
      >How callous and sheltered do you have to be to say something like that? Keep the dialogue civil. It turns out that industrializing a society creates a lot of pollution. That pollution, as we've recently found out, is responsible for "the massive humanitarian crises and greater suffering" we are going to experience as impoverished nations continue to industrialize (ie. get lifted out of poverty). See: IPCC

vertline3 8y ago

Chinese Panda conservation is a kind of 'soft power'. Being a place with Tigers and Rhinos is large bragging rights that I think they would be Keen to hold. Chinese Medicine can be changed to exclude endangered animals if Chinese Govt are able to handpick religious leaders.

duxup 8y ago

I thought a lot of traditional Chinese culture got run over by the cultural revolution, but this stuff never did. I wonder why.

ajmurmann 8y ago
Someone in another comment explained that Mao pushed it due to lack of real doctors.
- duxup 8y ago
  Well that is appropriately disappointing.
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    Thanks to the pointer and Google, I just "enjoyed" this very good article on the topic: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional-chinese-medicine/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional-chin...
bgee 8y ago
> I thought a lot of traditional Chinese culture got run over by the cultural revolution Asking as a Chinese myself, can you point to some examples? edit: improve formatting
- duxup 8y ago
  I don't really know how to address questions when it comes to the answer of "that's just basic history". Maybe history is wrong but I'm always wary of being expected to make the case that it isn't...
  - bgee 8y ago
    What I meant was maybe you can help me by pointing out something in history that was very prosperous before Cultural Revolution but died right after (if I understand "run over" correctly).

ajmurmann 8y ago

Tragedy of the commons problems like environmental issues should really be the main reason for international conflict. It's depressing that it's not.

nepotism2018 8y ago

Surely China is looking to breed these animals locally rather than chase them around the world? like https://phasa.co.za/hunting-services/ https://phasa.co.za/hunting-services/

pastor_elm 8y ago

China recently re-banned Ivory after too much backlash. Makes sense they would open up a new market to placate the population that believes in this crap. Looks like Yao Ming has to come out of retirement again.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

solveq 8y ago

The ultra solution is to inject to these animals something harm to human, but no harm to themselves. Which can prevent people hunting them for money.

SteveGoob 8y ago

I have very mixed feelings about this. Let me explain: This move from China is definitely going to bring more incentive for illegal poaching. It's just simple economics: by officially bringing a market back, profits to be made are much greater, and people will find any way to get in on the action. If, however, if we provide more _legal_ means for people to benefit from the tiger and rhino markets, we could provide enough economic incentive for people to be invested in their survival. The big deal here would be the opportunity for private ownership (rhino and tiger 'farms' basically). People will viciously protect what's theirs from poachers and ensure it's continued existence, especially if there is money to be made by doing so. If people are allowed to privately own, breed, and sell their tigers and rhinos, I think China's move could actually _facilitate recovery_ for both species. But is that what China's planning to do? I doubt it given their track record and political philosophies, which means this is going to only make the extinction of tigers and rhino's a bigger problem.