In China and South-east Asia, thousands of animals from endangered species – bears, snakes, tigers – are kept in appalling conditions and butchered for their ‘exotic’ meat. There are now more tigers in farms than in the wild. Can this barbarism be stopped?
The tiger paces back and forth in its cage, groaning mournfully. A second big cat sleeps soundly in the corner, while a third stares blankly at the bars. Next to this cage is another containing three more tigers, and after that three more cages: a line of small pens, each holding at least one cat. Most likely, none has long to live.
The tigers are property of the Kings Romans Group, which operates a casino here, along with hotels, a shooting range, a cockfighting and bullfighting ring, a Chinatown-themed shopping center, and this shabby zoo. Ten years ago, the Hong Kong-based company signed a lease with the Laotian government to develop this 12-square-mile plot in northwestern Bokeo province, just across the Mekong river from Thailand. It’s called the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.
Most businesses in the duty-free complex are owned and staffed by Chinese citizens and patronised by a predominantly Chinese clientele. Many are drawn here by the promise of vices not as easily found back home, including products made from exotic animals like tigers.
Conservationists maintain that this zoo is actually a farm raising animals for slaughter, and that it plays a significant role in perpetuating the illegal wildlife trade, swapping tigers with similar operations in Thailand and illegally butchering animals for their bones, meat and parts.
Tigers, bears, snakes and countless other species, many endangered, are held on farms throughout South-east Asia. Operators illegally capture animals in the wild and then pass them off as captive-bred, or breed the animals on site and illegally sell them into the trade. These facilities are part of a contraband industry whose profitability by some estimates is surpassed only by the global trade in drugs and arms, and by human trafficking.