11 Siberian Tigers Starved To Death

[Cheyd]

http://www.news.com.au/world/eleven-siberi...r-1225839832872

ELEVEN Siberian tigers have died of malnutrition at a zoo in China in the past three months.

The tigers of the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in northeast China's Lianoning province died due to malnutrition rather than infectious diseases, said Liu Xiaoqiang, vice chief of the Shenyang Wild Animal Protection Station.

The tigers were fed only one or two scrawny chicken carcasses each day and were confined in very small, wet cages. In one case, six tigers died in a single day.

The zoo has blamed dwindling finances on the tigers’ deaths. Since November, 2009, Shenyang Qipanshan Administration Committee has been providing the zoo with food worth 18,000 yuan ($2880) a day. This amount of money is deemed adequate to meet the tigers’ nutritional needs.

However, a zoo official said: “The zoo is in a financial crisis and we haven’t been able to provide the tigers with sufficient food for the last two years. An adult tiger eats about 20lb of meat a day, but the tigers here can barely get a chicken to quench their hunger every one or two days.”

The zoo has also reportedly been behind in paying wages for over a year.

It is not the first time the zoo has been in the news for leaving its tigers to starve.

In November last year, two hungry tigers at the sanctuary were killed after they mauled a zoo worker who suffered serious injuries. After the incident, the local administration asked the zoo authorities to keep the animals in cages, which further deteriorated their health, Liu said.

In late 2007, four tigers at the zoo killed and devoured another tiger with which they had shared their living quarters for five years, The Times reported.

According to travel agency promotions online, the zoo is a first-class national wild animal zoo that opened in 2000.

Only about 20 of rare endangered Siberian, or Amur, tigers are believed to survive in the wild along China’s border with Russia. The South China tiger is believed to be close to extinct.

About 5000 tigers live on farms in northeastern China and in the southwest where they are bred in the hope that a ban on trade in tiger parts may one day be lifted, unleashing demand among Chinese for bones for use in traditional medicine and aphrodisiac tonics, The Times reported.

;) ;) ;) Very sad to see that this can happen in this day and age ;)

[persephone]

;)

WWF Info on TCM

Edited March 12, 2010 by persephone

[Kirislin]

Just breaks my heart

[mish13]

Wouldn't you think they would try and relocate the animals to another facility somewhere in the world where they would be taken care of. To let them just starve to death is unthinkable.

[Miss_Broughton]

Wouldn't you think they would try and relocate the animals to another facility somewhere in the world where they would be taken care of. To let them just starve to death is unthinkable.

I agree, those poor tigers and what ever other animal may be suffering the same.

It's not fair. Why would they have animals they can not feed properly.

It's soo Cruel.

[casowner]

There are a lot of restrictions/plans/quarantine etc when animals are transferred to other zoos, this can take months or years. Zoo's must have the facilities and the room etc to house them and in this case it may have been too late for them.

It is a truly disgraceful situation and no animals should suffer like that regardless