Maybe 300 Siberian Tigers remaining in the World and China lets 11 Starve to Death in Zoo!

BEIJING – Eleven rare Siberian tigers kept in small cages and fed only chicken bones have died of malnutrition at a zoo in China’s frigid northeast, state media said Friday.

Siberian tigers are one of the world’s rarest species, with just 300 believed remaining in the wild.

Liu Xiaoqiang, vice chief of the Shenyang Wild Animal Protection Station, was quoted by the China Daily as saying 11 of the zoo’s tigers died of malnutrition in the last three months after subsisting on a meager diet of chicken bones.

Two others were shot dead by police in November after the hungry animals attacked a zookeeper.

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China has more than 200 zoos, but only large zoos in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai receive government funding and attention, state media say.

“Many privately-owned zoos are under financial pressure, and most of them fail to feed the animals well,” said Liu.

China said last month it had nearly 6,000 tigers in captivity, but just 50-60 left roaming in the wild, including about 20 wild Siberian tigers.

There are in theory four varieties of wild tigers in China, but 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 the rapid disappearance of the endangered species.

In the 1980s, China set up tiger farms to try to preserve the big cats, intending to release some into the wild, but those farms have come under the international spotlight, with some conservation groups saying they use the great cats for their parts.

China banned the international trade in tiger bones and related products in 1993, and is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which also bars such trade.

The global wild tiger population is estimated to be at an all-time low of 3,200, down from an estimated 20,000 in the 1980s and 100,000 a century ago.

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 Wildlife slaughtered to make way for another polluting bloody car race! – Cheaper for heartless Bathurst council to kill the kangaroos than to build a higher fence - Perfect example of backward attitude we allow to remain in power(news link) - ‘WildLIFE’ should be priority over a car race in the 21st Century, if you share this view & the need for us to ‘evolve’ to a more considerate lifeform on this earth then join the Kangaboy voice for animals – with Kangaboy You Can Wear it!

Kangaroos were the big losers in this year’s Bathurst 1000