Why Do People Hunt Tigers?

Tigers are killed for body parts used in traditional medicines. The biggest threat facing Amur tigers is habitat loss due to logging. As they lose habitat, they lose prey, which means they sometimes turn to domestic livestock for food. This makes them unpopular with ranchers, who may shoot them as pests.

And tigers are killed for other reasons: they're hunted for their meat and skins as well as their bones, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Poaching of tigers has become an increasing problem in recent years, and it's taking a heavy toll on these mighty cats.

Most Siberian tigers are killed for export to China. As a member of CITES, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is (allegedly) committed to stopping the illegal trade of animals, such as tigers, and consequently the decline of their population. However, tiger products are in evidence in China. The State Council of the PRC however reported that existing stockpiles of tiger derivatives in China were obtained before China joined CITES.

Tigers are falling prey to unscrupulous hunters who are indiscriminately killing them for measly amounts on the behest of bigger fishes. The sad part is the protectors of tigers have become hand in glove with the poachers in killing one of the magnificent creations of GOD. The main reason behind killing the magnificent beast is two folds. The first being feeding the insatiable hunger of especially the Chinese in supplying tiger body parts for so called medicinal purpose. They are supposed to produce medicinal products out of the tigers.

The second part is many a degenerated souls put up a cowardly act of putting on tiger skin adorned garments to pump up their ego. In India many tigers have been poached to satisfy the Tibetans who wear them as traditional dresses. Recently His holiness the Dalai Lama has issued a decree against it. You may be shocked to know that recently in India one national tiger reserve (Sireska) was found to be devoid of tigers as all had been poached. To cut short at this rate of tiger culling our next generation may not be able to look at tigers in real life but in photos only. As some one said the tiger is hemorrhaging, unless we get up & do something positive about it it may be gone for ever.

They are only being killed illegally, Tigers are a protected species, and it is illegal to import any part of them into the UK, however, we in the UK have no say in what goes on in other countries, the ban is world wide and introduced by the UN but there are many curative properties attributed, but not correctly, to products from Tigers and other strong animals such as Lion and Bear. Many primitive cultures, and others not so primitive, believe that eating part of a tiger would mean the person absorbs some of its strength and courage.

Some people feel the fur is an exotic type of clothing. Or a fancy rug. What they don't realize is that they wouldn't be very happy if some animal used a person's skin in the same way (sorry if that's a bit graphic). This makes me especially sad, because I work with tigers, and they're my favorite animal.