A tiger raiser in Nghe An disclosed to VietNamNet that he bought baby tigers from Ha Tinh. Besides Do Thanh commune, other neighboring communes also breed tigers. This man also answered the question why local people could raise tigers for a year and sold them without being exposed by any government agency.
Illegally bred tigers being confiscated.
All villagers raise tigers
In Dai Thanh commune, not only C. but many other families bred tigers. Income from farming tigers is huge, with tens of US dollars from each batch.
“We are farmers. We do not know what to do to earn money so we have to dare to breed tigers. On average, each household has a pair of tigers,” C said.
This man stressed that only rich families could afford to raise tigers because this job needs big capital, knowledge of tigers and especially “relationships” with local officials, to be able to breed tigers without being “detected.”
According to C’s brother, named H., those who have money can buy a pair of tigers while others can borrow bank loans and raise tigers together. Therefore, they have the concept “raising one and a half tiger” because two families together raise three tigers.
”In this commune, my family has the highest number of tigers (four). I have partners, so I bought four baby tigers, totaling nearly VND800 million ($40,000),” H said.
Profit from tiger farming is huge, H added. However, the profit depends on the growth of tigers. The bigger they are, the more profit the breeder earns. Those who have good understanding of and experience in raising tigers usually earn more profit.
”Deducting breeding costs, we can earn profit of several hundreds of million dong (tens of thousands dong) from a tiger,” H. said.
According to him, tiger farming has become a “movement” in Do Thanh for two years. “We mainly buy breeding tigers from Ha Tinh province, especially in Huong Son district. To buy baby tigers, we have to make orders and wait for a period of time,” H. said.
“A to Z protection”
Most recently, the environmental police force seized four tigers that were being transported from Huong Son to Nghe An.
I asked H ”More than a dozen of households breed tigers but the commune authorities do not know about it?”
“Don’t be worried about it! We have had “protection” from A to Z,” H. answered.
”Do the commune government know about tiger farming?” I asked.
”Certainly! They know it but they ignore because this is business. They said they don’t care about business. Just not bring social evils to this commune, not involving in drug trafficking; it’s okay,” H. said.
H. said when they sold tigers, the buyer usually asked them to take care of tiger delivery. The price of tigers depends on the agreement between the two sides on the number of tigers and where they were delivered.
Our conversation with tiger breeders ended by our promises to find the buyer of tigers, rhino horns, Russian bear bile, frozen baby tigers for H.
“We can supply these products any time. You do not have to worry about transportation,” H. said firmly.
Some time after our visit to Do Thanh, one of us got a phone call from H. He said his family just bought a baby tiger, but it died. The tiger was 5kg in weight and was frozen. The price of a living baby tiger is nearly VND200 million ($10,000), but it is only VND20 million ($1,000) for the dead tiger.
While writing these articles, we kept wondering why illegal tiger farmer took place for a long time but it was not discovered?
According to C and H, it is obvious that the local authorities already knew but turned a blind eye to them.
And one more thing, the origin of the tigers, as disclosed by C, is from Laos. Baby tigers were transported from Laos to Huong Son district, Ha Tinh province, to sell to Vietnamese breeders. Huong Son has long been considered one of the hotspots of wildlife trade.
The public has the right to raise the question “whether there is a ring to shield illegal tiger farming in Nghe An?”
All information and images in these articles are for the authorities in Nghe An province, the Ministry of Public Security, the Forest Protection Department, the Customs Agency and environment and wildlife protection organizations.
We will continue our investigation and report to the readers in the shortest time.
Author: Phan Song La
Source: Vietnamnet
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