Surviving Extinction

December 11, 2010

In a conversation (through comments) of Saving Siberian Tigers in Northeast China, I wrote that the tiger poachers, if caught, should be castrated and given a second chance at life then executed if they hunted tigers again.

The individual I was having this conversation with said that castration followed by a death sentences was a bit harsh and he or she was right. 

It is harsh.

However, my response, which follows, shows why such harshness may be necessary for humanity to survive its own extinction.

You are correct to sense my anger over the slaughter of animal species by humans.  It’s one thing for a species to go extinct due to environmental changes in the planet but for humans to slaughter senselessly as Americans did with the North American buffalo in the 19th century when expanding west toward the Pacific was wrong in so many ways.

What explains the 19th century people who sat in trains shooting through open windows at the buffalo to see how many they could kill?

The closest example I can think of is World War II in China when Japanese army officers would have beheading contests to see how many innocent Chinese noncombatant citizens could be beheaded in a given time span.

There are terms for people like this:  sociopaths, narcissists, self-centered, and “A” type personalities such as Hitler.   Humanity would be better off to rid individuals like this from the gene pool, which is why I have no problem with China’s death sentences and execution rate.

I’m reading a book, Living With Evolution or Dying Without It.  Before writing the book, the author, K. D. Koratsky spent most of his life studying all aspects of evolution—not just the evolution of species but culture, civilizations, religions, etc.

In one section, he pointed out that cultures that executed dangerous criminal types with behavior that threatened the stability of the culture such as what happened in 2008 with the global economic crises caused by Wall Street and US banks, tended to be stable and survive for much longer period of time than cultures that were too lenient on such people such as the US is today.

If the men depicted in the Inside Job documentary had been Chinese citizens and had caused the 2008 global financial crises from China instead of the United States, the odds are good that they would all have been tried and convicted in a Chinese court and already have been executed for the 64 trillion US dollars in global losses and millions of jobs that vanished.

Instead, in the US, there hasn’t been an investigation and most of the men who brought the world this crises are still working in the industry doing business the way they did before the 2008 financial crises hit.

In America, repeat child molesters are allowed to go free after prison sentences and are often chemically castrated yet have managed to molest again and then are sent back for another prison sentence with another parole in the future. 

This is insanity.

I was actually going easy on the tiger poachers when I suggested castration and a chance to live.  People like that should be tortured then executed to send a strong message.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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Saving Siberian Tigers in northeast China – Part 2/2

December 2, 2010

Tourists may buy live animals for the tigers to kill and eat. Chickens are the best price.

Allowing the tourists to buy live food for the tigers has to do with money – but money is not the key factor.

In artificial breeding, the park feeds the tigers a fixed diet using artificial or processed food. This diet might eventually lead to malnutrition. The most important thing for the tourists is that they are helping feed the cats.

Feeding the tigers live animals is also part of a long-term project with a goal of releasing tigers back into the wild.

There is another park near Changbai Mountain that has about fifteen specially selected tigers.

These tigers still live behind a fence. However sending tigers to the Changbai Mountains allows them to be more experienced with the natural environment.

The Hunchun Nature Reserve was established in 2001 for the protection of wild Siberian tigers and leopards.

Before releasing the tigers into the wild, the big cats must be given the appropriate wild-habitat training. The first step is for the tiger to adapt to the climate changes of the four seasons. Next, the tigers’ hunting ability must be improved.

Since the Changbai Mountains share a border with North Korea, the big cats are allowed to travel between countries. In the past, the border was divided by iron and wire mesh fences, which blocked the tigers. Now the fence is gone.

It is believed that with wild training over time and with the efforts of several generations of scientists, the tigers will finally return to nature.

Return to Saving Siberian Tigers in northeast China – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review posted June 19 2014

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Saving Siberian Tigers in northeast China – Part 1/2

December 1, 2010

Steven McDonald reports from the Chinese North Korean border. Siberian tigers once roamed this area in the thousands, but as the forest disappeared so did they.

In 2007, it was estimated that 12 wild tigers remained in China’s northeast. This small gene pool has led to genetic deficiencies. The Associated Press reported the tiger could be extinct in a dozen years if left unprotected.

Individual tigers once roamed over a territory of 50 square kilometers or more, but today there isn’t much forest left to support even a few hundred in the wild.

Today, visiting the Siberian tiger park 37 km north of the city of Harbin is recommended unless you are squeamish since live animals are fed to the tigers.

Big Cat News reports that the tiger park sits on almost 400 acres of land and is one of the largest tiger refuges in the world.

A group of Chinese scientists is attempting to save the Siberian tiger and captive breeding has been successful.

The Harbin Tiger Park has more than four hundred. A sister park has about three hundred. In all of China, there are about 2,000 in captivity.

With such a small population, a DNA database is used to avoid losing genetic diversity. Tigers discovered to have flaws are not allowed to mate.

However, the park has a shortage of money. China’s government provides some funding, but the park relies mostly on tourism and ticket sales. It costs more than four million dollars annually to feed the 700 tigers in the two parks.

Continued in Saving Siberian Tigers in Northeast China – Part 2 or discover Tiger Trade leads to Guilin in Southeast China

______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review posted June 19 2014

Where to Buy

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline