Vietnamese admire the tiger and yet they have eaten it to near extinction

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Vietnam's tiger conservation efforts has arrived too late with just 5 wild tigers in the country! The video explains why Vietnamese people should think about tiger conservation and refuse to buy tiger glue among other tiger products. Tigers were plentiful in Vietnam. Now there are five in the wild. That's almost as good as saying they are extinct in the wild in Vietnam.


The video is good. I like it. But it's too late and the Vietnamese are engaged in a particularly obnoxious kind of speciesism concerning one species: the cat.

Their culture allows them to eat domestic cats after a brutal death and yet there is a big push to save the tiger. As I said this is speciesism and it is illogical to me.

It is remarkable that so many products are made from tiger body parts many based on unsubstantiated superstition. Killing tigers for body part products is killing them for no reason at all. It is just self-indulgent nonsense.

Education for Nature - Vietnam says that the remaining five wild tigers are mainly in...

"...border areas of the central and northwest region of the country. However, ENV investigations have proven that the illegal tiger trade flourishes in Vietnam with a number of farms known to be selling tiger cubs and trading tiger bones and parts."

Tiger bone glue
Tiger bone glue. I believe the photo was taken in Thailand where this product is sold. Image in the public domain.

The point is that five tigers is unsustainable as a population. There are not enough to maintain sufficient genetic diversity. They'll become inbred and then the males will become sterile. After than it will be a short time before the population dies out entirely. The wild tiger is doomed in Vietnam.

A study usefully explains what tiger bone glue is:
In Vietnam, tiger bone is often cooked into a glue known as cao hổ (in Vietnamese) that can be eaten directly or put into a medicinal wine (Krishnasamy and Stoner, 2016). This process involves two to three days of cooking in high-pressure cookers until tiger bones are completely dissolved to a glue-like substance
Tiger bone glue is sold in Thailand. Yes, it is about consuming the tiger for superstitious reasons. They think the product carries health benefits but it does not. As I said: pointless killings. The tiger bone glue is just one example of tiger products. There are many others.

The Vietnamese admire the tiger and yet they have all but killed it off by eating it! Bizarre or what?!
Location: Vietnam

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