Barun Mitra's response [after the jump] to your article was misleading and inaccurate. His suggestion that tiger farming might improve the lives of those living close to tigers in the wild or provide incentives to protect wild tigers is unfounded. The income from tiger farms are delivered to their owners and employees, many miles from the main remaining tiger populations. The farming of species can only ever provide disincentives to poach through lower prices, and never provides positive incentives.

It is for that reason that it is unfortunate that Mr Mitra also failed to point out that many of the crocodiles raised in captivity are in fact ranched and not farmed. Farming implies domestic breeding whilst ranching, a method unsuitable for tigers. Crocodile eggs are taken from the wild and raised; in this way ranching provides both income and a positive incentive for those living in proximity to the crocodiles to maintain healthy wild populations. It is more likely that traditional conservation techniques and ranching are to thank for their current global status. Thailand has had crocodile farms since the 1970s (no ranches) but the Siamese crocodile remains critically endangered.
Adam Dutton

Wildlife Conservation Research Unit
University of Oxford
Tubney, Oxon


I can understand that when trade is outlawed, outlaws trade, but applying the market view of mass production of homotypes to living creatures is totally wrong and stupid. The market assumes that one can trade in anything, with the same resulting consequences. Tigers, for Mr Mitra's kind information, cannot be compared to crocodiles. Tigers require a large prey base to support them in their extensive home ranges, which happen to be shrinking. There are
several other problems, population and anthropogenic pressures, genetic constraints. And there are examples of miserable failures of "inclusive" conservation of tigers.

Farming tigers is an idea which is irrational nonsense simply because human beings cannot manufacture ecological complexities that have been formed over evolutionary time. Commerce and conservation are antithetical, especially with respect to such species as the tiger. Market promoters must read more ecology and wildlife biology before making reductionist statements characteristic of temperate systems above 66.5 degrees latitude. Tropical ecology,
ecosystems, their sustainability, their energy and nutrient equations are different and much more complex, unlike temperate ones, which humans cannot restore, farm or replenish.

Wildlife biology has studied Indian and southeast Asian tigers reasonably well. The viability of marketing a large carnivorous species will not only be doomed in terms of economic gain, but will also doom the species.

Mr Mitra and his likes must realize that nature's economy and human economics are different in terms of complexity, diversity and scale. The latter cannot replace the former; protection and
conservation of nature ensures human existence. For ecological, moral and ethical reasons, let what is wild stay wild.

Nachiket Kelkar

Wildlife Conservation Society, India Program
Centre for Wildlife Studies
National Centre for Biological Sciences,
Bangalore, India

SIR — 

I agree that the Chinese market-based approach of breeding tigers in captivity for harvesting them doesn’t help tiger conservation, as it costs little for a poacher to kill a tiger in the wild. But another common market-based solution does exist: outsourcing. The ill-equipped and underpaid officers of the Indian Forest Service are simply no match for the increasingly ingenious and wily poaching gangs. The Indian government needs to outsource the security of its national parks to sophisticated international private security contractors of the Blackwater USA variety. Besides having unadulterated mandates of combating poachers and preventing habitat encroachment, these contractors can also be given long-term payment incentives for reviving tiger populations. 
While it is true that border smugglers and wildlife traders are an integral part of the nefarious trade in tiger parts, it is almost impossible to shut down their opaque and well-resourced networks. The only solution is to starve them of their raw material through aggressive, outsourced policing. Even though the proposition may prima facie seem expensive, it would yield immediate results and in the longer term would cost a fraction of what the Indian government either wastes or personally pockets in its conservation efforts. The surge in tourist revenues would likely offset the costs anyway.
Ashu Pal
Charlotte, North Carolina

SIR — 

Your article on tiger conservation actually outlined the cost of refusal to countenance markets. For a decade, I have argued that the only way to save the tiger is to sell it. But conservationists have posited that commerce and conservation are antithetical. The principal focus of their strategy has been prohibition — of tiger hunting, trading in tiger parts, and consumption of tigers. Policing
has been made the cornerstone of tiger conservation polices. Predictably, it has failed to arrest the decline of tigers in the wild.

Some of the poorest people on earth live in close proximity to valuable resources like tigers, yet they have no incentive to conserve and manage the resources sustainably. This is bad for the people and bad for tigers. This is an invitation for criminals and smugglers to profit from the poaching of tigers.

In contrast, two million crocodiles are harvested each year from facilities as far apart as Australia, South Africa and United States. The international availability of farmed crocodiles has virtually eliminated crocodile poaching. Clearly, when trade is outlawed, only outlaws trade! The only market failure here is the failure to let markets operate.

Barun S Mitra, Liberty Institute
New Delhi

SIR — 

It is greatly disappointing that The Economist failed to sound out both sides on the issue of whether or not to lift the ban on domestic sale of tiger derivatives. This has lead to factual errors and, worse, flawed logic.

First, traditional Chinese doctors in China (and patients take the advice of their practitioners) do not regard the wild tiger as more potent. Secondly, it is true that is it cheap to kill a wild tiger: poison costs $20, or you can pay a poacher $100-150.  And yes, it does cost thousands to raise a tiger in captivity. What you fail to address is the cost of bringing those goods to market. Because it is illegal trade, there are payoffs and bribes to be made at each juncture, and the increased risk requires an increased profit margin. The relevant cost structures need to be analyzed, but initial calculations suggest that tiger farming can be a profitable business. This is one which can be regulated, and also taxed, so that funds are made available for in situ conservation.

I would also say that there is misleading to state that there is "abundant evidence" that farmers are turning tigers into food and wine. There is one case of meat which did test positive for tiger DNA, but the wine tests were inconclusive. I would hardly call this "abundant".

I expect better research, fact checking, and thinking from The Economist.

Kirsten Conrad