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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Tiger Trade leads to Guilin in Southeast China

November 20, 2010

Every country has poorly written laws with loopholes that allow industrious entrepreneurs to make money anyway possible.

Exploiting wild animals is one way to make that money.

In May 2003, the San Diego Wild Animal Park in the U.S. came under intense criticism from animal welfare groups…

In February 1999, the San Jose Mercury News published a series of articles by Linda Goldstein entitled “Zoo Animals to Go”.

Goldstein alleged that major U.S. zoos in the United States purposely over breed some animals to produce babies that are popular with the public and bring in crowds. Older and less popular animals are quietly discarded and often end up at rundown roadside zoos and exotic animal auctions.

Unwanted but healthy animals were euthanized at the Detroit Zoo during the 1990s, and a handful of dealers preferred by the major zoos have become wealthy from the sales of unwanted exotics given or sold to them by the zoos, Goldstein claimed. Source: Entertainment Animals – Zoos

In China, animal welfare activists allege that a wildlife park in southeast China has been farming tigers.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported from Guilin that the tigers are declawed and defanged and threatened with sticks to perform tricks for audiences.

The Guilin tiger park claims it is a research establishment devoted to the welfare and survival of the big cat.

However, Chinese animal welfare activists claim that this is nothing more than a farm producing tigers for their valuable body parts.

Hua Ning of International Fund for Animal Welfare says people hear about these farms and think that the tigers will not perish. She says the truth is this park has about 1,500 tigers and many are abused.

Birtley says that killing tigers in China is illegal and offenders face stiff jail terms.

However, allowing tigers to die from starvation and neglect is not technically killing. That is the loophole in China’s law that critics say is being exploited at this wildlife park in Guilin.

The reality is that tigers are worth more dead than alive.

There are only a few hundred tigers at this park on display for visitors. Birtley was told the rest were used for research in a large section of the park closed to the public.

One product this park sells is wine made from tiger bones. One bottle may sell for $250 dollars.

Traditional Chinese medicine uses all parts of the tiger, but the bones are the most valuable part of the animal. It is believed these bones prolong life, cure rheumatism, arthritis and solve sexual problems.

Twenty-five kilos (55.1 pounds) of tiger bones will make enough wine to earn $300 thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, China’s government has urged zoos to stop serving wild animal products and holding wildlife performances in an attempt to improve the treatment of tigers, bears and other animals amid concerns over widespread abuse in zoos and wildlife parks. Source: Animal News

Discover China’s Tea Horse Road

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.