China's new favourite – Tiger tonic wine

China has officially allowed dose of tiger body parts - traditionally part of Chinese medicines - through an intoxicant - wine. Selling of Chinese medicines derived from tiger bones has been banned there but not the "tiger tonic wine". Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 27, 2013, 02:55:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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China has officially allowed dose of tiger body parts - traditionally part of Chinese medicines - through an intoxicant - wine.

Selling of Chinese medicines derived from tiger bones has been banned there but not the "tiger tonic wine".

The basic wine is made through traditional method but a tinge of tiger bone, before bottling, has turned out to be its unique selling point. A bottle costs anything between $100 to $800 depending for how tiger bone was in contact with wine.

An investigation by London based non-governmental group, Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) released on Tuesday, has found that tiger bones are soaked in wine and then removed, thereby not leaving any trace of it in the wine. Therefore, the company selling the wine is not entitled to list the tiger body part as one of the ingredients.

This is the catch.

When it comes to selling, mostly at country's 200 tiger farms, where captive bred tiger are kept for tourists, the tiger link proves to the delicacy.

"A government notification allows use of the bones of the captive-bred tigers to justify the manufacture of 'tonic' wines so no action can be taken against manufacturers," said Debbie Banks, head of EIA Tiger Campaign.

China, however, insisted that it has enacted laws and taken other steps to protect the wild cat. PTI quoted Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying to say that the Chinese government attaches great importance to the protection of endangered wildlife, including tigers.

These tiger farms have around 5,000 tigers - highest population of captive bred tigers in the world - and a stockpile of body parts of many dead big-cats, which are regularly audited by the authorities. "These bones are kept back in the stockpile at the time of auditing," Banks said.

China's illegal big cat body part industry is considered biggest incentive for poachers, especially in tiger's biggest home in wild, India, to kill the endangered species for a price ranging between Rs 10 to Rs 15 lakh per animal.

Around 60 % of 89 tiger deaths reported from 41 tiger reserves in India in 2012 were poaching related. Many believe that actual poaching could be higher because many a time poachers don't leave trace of the hunted animal behind for the killing to be reported.

Banks believes that the Chinese government's policy for promoting use of tiger skins as home décor and wine was stimulating poaching of wild tigers and other big cats in South Asia. The civil society group wants the Chinese government to destroy the stockpile of tiger body parts to effectively check the illegal wildlife trade.

India and United Kingdom has been seeking a ban on tiger farms in China, which the Communist government has refused to accept saying there was no evidence to link tiger farms with increase in demand for big cat body parts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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