The Chinese Are Boiling Up Tiger Bones To Make Wine That Boosts Their Sex Drive

Several farms that pose to be "wildlife parks" in China have an evil secret. The tigers kept in captivity there are being starved so that their bones may be used to make wine.

thepetitionsite.com

Sold as a pep tonic and an aphrodisiac, each bottle is sold at around ?400 (approx INR 38,426). It's no wonder that the production has increased ever more considering the booming middle class in China who firmly believe that traditional medicine, which calls for the use of exotic ingredients, is therapeutic. The government's failure to intervene in the trade has made it all the more easy for customers to order a bottle at their dinner table or purchase them online.

The wine is made from steeping the bones in rice wine for eight years, which are then bottled with a mixture of herbs and snake extract. It is an intensely sweet mixture that tastes like a mixture of cough syrup and low quality brandy, according to a reporter who went undercover for the Mail Online.

advocacy.britannica.com

The investigation uncovered tigers being kept in shabby enclosures as their population was increasing. Although the wildlife parks in southwestern China do not attract many visitors, they still seem to be surviving. The breeders are waiting for the tigers to die of natural causes when they can use their skeletons to produce the sought after wine.

Environmental agencies have called to end the rapid breeding of tigers as this will only encourage this lucrative business. According to The Daily Mail, the breeding of tigers for body parts is banned under the international wildlife conservation treaty CITES, to which China is a signatory ¨C but the Chinese government has granted an exemption to breeders of captive-bred tigers who argue their farms reduce poaching of wild tigers.

shanghaidaily.com

However, Xiongsen Tiger Park in south west China, which is said to produce the best tiger wine, claims that it is not doing anything illegal. Other than being starved due to "a shortage of food for so many animals", the tigers are made to perform there for the small number of visitors who do show up.

In China, tiger wine is sold openly, but the bottles do not state what the exact ingredients are. In fact they are labelled as "Bone protecting papaya wine" while others are in the shape of a seated tiger.

saasa.org.za

China's taste for this product of animal cruelty seems to see no end. This has prompted neighbouring nations like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to set up tiger farms to feed the insatiable demand.