Feb 17 – Yin Hong, vice head of the Chinese State Forestry Administration, has stated that the country has nearly 6,000 tigers in captivity and could breed 1,000 each year, amid international controversy over the benefits of farming the endangered species.

“There are close to 6,000 tigers that have been artificially bred and raised in China,” Chinese state media quoted Yin saying. “These tigers can breed over 1,000 baby tigers every year.”

Yin’s comments came as China rang in the Year of the Tiger on February 14 amid mounting worldwide concern over dwindling numbers of the great cats.

Yin said there were just 50 to 60 wild tigers left in China. Conservation groups have said recently fewer than 50 still roam the country.

There are four varieties of wild tigers in China, and one of them – the South China tiger – has not been spotted in the wild since the late 1970s. In the 1950s there were around 4,000 of the subspecies. Degradation of the animal’s habitat and poaching of the tiger and its prey are blamed for its rapid disappearance.

In the 1980s China set up tiger farms to try and preserve the big cats, intending to release some into the wild.

But experts warn it will be difficult for captive tigers to re-adapt to the wild, and the sheer number of the endangered animals kept in farms now poses a challenge. “The government now realizes it’s a problem but they haven’t figured out how to deal with the existing tigers yet,” Xie Yan, director of the China program for the Wildlife Conservation Society, told AFP.

The existence of tiger farms in China and other countries has sparked international controversy. In July, Keshav Varma, leader of the World Bank’s Global Tiger Initiative, called for tiger farming to be phased out, saying there was a danger this could hasten the extinction of the endangered species. “Would it create new markets and an even higher demand for wild tiger products – for those who want a luxury good – the ‘real thing?’” he asked.

According to Chinese state media, farms in China make little money, apart from tourists, and some are pushing for a 1993 ban on the trade in tiger parts and related products to be reversed so they can profit from the animals once they die. Experts, however, say this would encourage poaching. Tigers have been seen, heavily sedated, in urban parks in several Chinese cities in the past where money is made from having tourists pose for photographs next to them. At the Siberian Tiger Park on Sun Island in Harbin, tourists can buy live chickens to throw to the captive animals to eat. However, Tigers generally require far more substantial food and need to hone their tracking and killing skills to be able to survive in their natural environment.

The issue China faces is whether the Tiger is an animal to be exploited, or whether it wants to make serious attempts to reintroduce them to the wild. The exploitation route is thought to be a long and slow road to ultimate extinction if the animal is not to be permitted to roam in its natural habitat. Treating the Tiger as a commodity is a controversial policy.