WORLD

A viral video showing tigers chasing a drone likely comes from a slaughter facility in China. (Nat Geo News)

Find the dwindling habitat of Chinese tigers with our MapMaker Interactive layer.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas

• Critics have suggested a recent video depicting a group of tigers taking down a drone may have been shot at a tiger farm. What is a tiger farm?
  • “A tiger farm is a facility that breeds tigers like livestock. While alive, the tigers attract tourists who come to gawk at the animals and even take selfies … Tigers are later slaughtered for the luxury and medicinal markets.”

• What are some of the luxury and medical markets tiger farms supply?
  • Luxury
    • Tiger-skin rugs remain a popular luxury item.
    • Tiger amulets contain pieces of a tiger’s skin or coat.
    • Tiger claws and teeth are often sold as jewelry.
  • Medicine
    • Wine: Tiger bone wine, in which the animal’s bones are steeped in rice wine and aged for years, claims to boost the drinker’s health. “Supporters of the drink believe that it promotes healing, acts as an anti-inflammatory, and cures arthritis.”
    • Pills: The pharmaceutical industry uses many parts of the tiger in powdered or gel form: claws, teeth, fat, bones, eyeballs, bile, tail, brain, even feces.
    • Etc.: Nose leather is a luxury item and associated with treatment of rashes and insect bites. Whiskers are associated with treatment of toothaches.

• Do tiger farms help protect wild tigers?
  • Proponents of tiger farms say they take pressure off wild populations. Conservationists dismiss this idea. “If there was any indication that they led to tigers in the wild not being persecuted, we would have seen it by now. We haven’t,” said one expert.
  • Instead of raising awareness about conservation of tigers, most experts think tiger farms “help erase the stigma around tiger products, encouraging more people to buy them.”

• Why do critics think the tigers in the video were likely on a farm and not in the wild?
  • Siberian tigers are an endangered species; the tigers in the video don’t fit that profile.
    • China has an estimated seven Siberian tigers in the wild, and the video clearly shows more than that. (We counted as many as 12?)
    • Siberian tigers are largely solitary animals, and this group of tigers interacts comfortably with each other.
    • All of the tigers in the video are well-fed and even obese, indicating little competition for food.
    • Tigers rarely venture near human settlements, but large buildings are visible in the video.

TEACHERS TOOLKIT

Nat Geo: What You Need to Know About Tiger Farms article

Nat Geo: Where are tiger ranges? map

IUCN Red List: Panthera tigris altaica