Jonathan Watts - When a Billion Chinese Jump

Xiongsen was pushing at, and possibly beyond, the boundaries of the law. The park’s restaurant, which overlooked the biggest of the animal enclosures, offered a dish called “conquering king”—the classical term for tiger—for 500 yuan, along with lion, crocodile, peacock, snake, bear, and civet cat in equally thin disguises. “Everything comes from our park,” the waitress said proudly. “We don’t list the ingredients. You must use your imagination.”

Along with our food we got a full serving of the captive-breeding sales pitch. A poster next to the tables rhetorically asked: “Why does our country categorize the tiger as a class A protected species?” The answer it supplied had more to do with classical views of nature’s utility than modern fears about declining numbers. “Because if you look at the 5,000-year history of Chinese medicine, the famous doctor Li Shizhen noted that every part of the tiger’s body is a treasure.”

On the black market, a single animal could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The bones, used in tonics, were the most valuable part: the 25 kilograms yielded by the average tiger can fetch 2.4 million yuan ($343,000), about ten times the price of a pelt. 21The park’s “museum” was a showroom containing the skeleton of a sixteen-year-old tiger and six huge clay urns each filled with 2,000 liters of “bone-strengthening wine.” Assistants encourage visitors to buy half-liter tiger-shaped bottles of the tonic for about $90. Each drop, they claimed, was distilled in vats containing the paws of tigers that died of natural causes.

They were either lying or lawbreaking. The State Forestry Administration allowed sales of the wine on condition that the only bones used in it were from lions. That was possible—Xiongsen has 200 captive-bred African lions—but in Chinese medicine these beasts were traditionally considered a poor substitute for tiger.

The park epitomized the utilitarian, nature-conquering approach to the environment and its consequences. At Xiongsen, the number of captive tigers had surged from twelve in 1992 to 1,300. But in the wild, the population had shrunk from several thousand in the 1950s to fewer than fifty. The trend was clear: the fearsome jungle predator had been subdued into a caged farm animal. The government had taken half a step away from these traditions by putting a ban in place. But it had not halted the industrial production of tigers even when the ancient tonic for health had become a drag on the economy.

Nor had there been an attempt to change the traditions behind the demand for tiger. At a pharmacy outside, the displays were filled with desiccated sea horses for breast cancer, dog penises for virility, deer hooves for arthritis, baby snakes for sore throats, and ant lotions for beriberi. One rheumatism treatment had a picture of a tiger on the packet, but the only animal part listed among the ingredients was powdered leopard bone. Tibetan medicine, which was increasingly popular, placed just as much importance on acquiring ingredients from rare species, such as antelope horn, snake meat, and caterpillar fungus. Some potions proved useful, but there was not enough consideration of efficacy and rarity. In many cases endangered animals were being slaughtered for nothing. The saiga antelope, which once roamed the plains of China and Russia in huge herds, was hunted to the brink of extinction because its translucent pale pink horns were thought to have magical healing qualities in traditional medicine. Western science suggested, however, that consumers could get the same amount of nutrition by chewing their fingernails. 22

The government protects China’s traditions better than it protects the country’s wildlife. Health ministry officials defend Dr. Li’s ancient prescriptions as part of an almost blanket endorsement of traditional medicine. Rare animals are protected only selectively and usually inadequately. The Wildlife Protection Law of 1988 epitomized the superficiality of much conservation work in China. On the surface, the law was progressive, prohibiting the killing of about 1,300 endangered species, encouraging forestry bureaus to set up nature reserves, and designating all wild animals as the property of the state. But it made only vague mention of habitat protection. 23Instead it established guidelines for the management of captive-breeding centers. In effect, the law encouraged the setting up of farms like Xiongsen that supplied restaurants and pharmacies.

In the decade that followed, 164 such centers were established. There are now farms of scorpions, salamanders, crocodiles, herons, musk deer, black bears, golden coin turtles, and cobras. 24Though many are nominally listed as conservation centers, their true purpose is evident from their location. Half of the farms are sited not where the animals live in the wild but near the main two markets for traditional medicine and exotic food, Guangdong and Guangxi.

Wildlife has been caught in a pincer between traditional medicine and modern development. The government offers little protection from either. Bureaucratic efforts at conservation are stymied by weak laws, fragmented oversight, and the long-standing belief that nature needs to be managed. 25Few people seem to accept that the best way to let animal populations recover is to leave both them and their habitats alone.

I saw just how intrusive the alternatives could be at the most celebrated conservation park in China. The Wolong Nature Reserve was a four-hour drive from Chengdu, mostly through dense mountain forests. 26It was dark before I reached my hotel. On the approach I caught glimpses of steep river gorges and broad reservoirs in the moonlight, but it was only as I watched the sun rise the following morning that I appreciated the true beauty of the setting. It was early autumn, the hillsides were dappled with red and gold, and the crisp air was filled with birdsong.

The forests here extend hundreds of miles to the stunning opal rock-salt pools of Jiuzhaigou. In this beautiful, biorich area, the famous botanical explorer E. O. Wilson made seed collections between the wars that transformed British gardens with new varieties of azaleas, buddleia, peonies, hydrangea, magnolia, aster, and columbine. It is also home to black bear, takin, golden monkeys, musk deer, blood pheasants, minivets, rock squirrel, and black- and red-striped swallowtails. 27

But by far its most famous resident is the giant panda. For most of the late twentieth century this epitome of bestial cuteness seemed doomed to extinction. Yet Wolong’s scientists were boasting that they had brought Old Black Eyes back from the brink. I met the man who claimed to have saved the world’s most famous endangered animal. It was a shocking introduction to the hard-core realities of modern animal husbandry.

Zhang Hemin was known as the “Father of Pandas,” a nickname that revealed more about his paternalistic relationship with the animals than his formal title, director of Wolong Nature Reserve Administration. Bespectacled, moon-faced, and engagingly enthusiastic, he gave me a warm welcome as soon as I arrived at the research center. Zhang told me he had good news: the panda was no longer in danger because he had mastered a breeding technique with a near 100 percent success rate. As a result, the problem was no longer a shortage of pandas but of space.

To prove his point, he took me to the nursery, where there were too many newborns for the incubators, so three or four tiny cubs dozed on blankets on the floor. Next door, the pandagarten was similarly crowded with ten one-year-olds vying playfully for the top spot on a tree branch. More mature pandas had to be rotated between the spacious forested enclosures on the hillside and the narrow concrete pens close to the entrance. As we wandered among them, Zhang said his target was a captive population of 300 by 2016 (up from 120 in 2006), which would guarantee the survival of the species for at least a hundred years.