Voice 1
Thank you for Joining us for today’s Spotlight. I’m Rebekah Schipper.
Voice 2
And I’m Joshua Leo. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
In a small village market in Cambodia, Sen Sovann sells many things. He sells animals, and parts of animals. He says that he can sell you a baby tiger. It will cost you one thousand dollars. And it will only take him two weeks to get. Many people in this Cambodian market sell parts of animals. This market is part of the “black market.” It is a place where people sell things illegally. But people do not purchase the animals in the market to keep in their homes. They purchase them for the animal’s body parts.
Today’s spotlight is on one animal’s fight for survival.
Voice 2
Every culture has its own answers to health problems. One answer is medicines from a doctor. Another answer is using traditional methods. Some people say that eating particular foods will help stop a sickness. Some people put particular substances on painful parts of their bodies.
Voice 1
Many people do not like the idea of using strange chemicals. They do not like medicine. Instead they use natural substances made from plants, minerals, and sometimes animals. But killing animals to make medicine has caused problems in some animal populations.
Voice 2
For example, the tiger population in Asia has suffered greatly. Tigers are the largest kind of cat in the world. Tigers have orange and black lines on their body. There used to be eight [8] different kinds of tiger in Asia. Today there only five species of tiger left in Asia.
Voice 1
For many years, the Chinese government encouraged people to kill tigers. Chairman Mao Tse-Tung said that tigers were bad animals. So people killed them. People killed thousands of tigers in China. Killing tigers is now illegal in China. But poachers still kill tigers illegally. Today, there are only about one hundred fifty [150] wild tigers left in China.
Voice 2
But hunting is not the only reason why there are less tigers in China. People have destroyed about ninety-nine [99] percent of China’s original forests. The tigers lived in these forests. Now, they do not have safe places to live. But China is not the only place where tigers are in danger. All through Asia, people threaten wild tigers.
Voice 1
Some people in Asia use tiger organs for natural medicine. People buy and sell many parts of the tiger. They sell tiger skins, and tiger whiskers, the hairs near a tiger’s mouth. They even sell a tiger’s sexual organs. For instance, some people use tiger bones to treat arthritis. They grind the bones into a dust and eat it. They believe it will heal the pain in their bones. But scientists have found that tiger bones do not help pain at all.
Voice 2
There are few tigers left in the world. But some people do not seem to care. They still want the tiger-products. Some people are willing to pay a lot of money for the tiger parts. In fact, some people are willing to pay up to forty thousand [40,000] dollars for a dead tiger. This is what encourages poachers, people who kill animals illegally.
Voice 1
Although it is illegal to kill tigers, it is difficult for police to enforce the laws. They cannot watch each tiger in the wild to protect it. So, what can government officials do to help save tigers?
Voice 2
A group of researchers in China have a new idea to stop the illegal killing of tigers. In China there are many tiger farms. These farms were started to help protect tigers. Over four thousand [4,000] tigers live on these farms. But Chinese law makes it illegal for people to kill these tigers. Many die from old age each year.
Voice 1
The researchers have considered selling the tiger-parts on the black market. You may be asking yourself “I thought selling tiger parts is illegal?” That is true, but these researchers are seeking government approval to sell these parts.
Voice 2
But how does selling more tiger parts help stop people from killing more tigers? Well, these researchers want to flood the black market with farm-tiger parts. They want to sell a lot of tiger parts themselves. They believe that this will make prices lower. If the prices are lower, people will not make money from hunting tigers. There will be less of a reason to hunt them. The researchers also want to use the money made by selling the tiger parts. It could help save tigers in the wild.
Voice 1
But there are many people who disagree with the researchers. They think that there are many problems with this plan. Grace Gabriel works for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. She believes that legal trade of farmed tigers will increase poaching of wild tigers. Today, police can stop people from selling tiger parts. They know that all tiger parts are illegal. But if there are both farmed tiger parts and wild tiger parts, there would not be a way to tell which were illegal. Miss Gabriel says,
Voice 3
“Parts could come from wild tigers just as easily. It is going to make law enforcement much more difficult.”
Voice 2
Miss Gabriel does not think that the money from selling the farm tigers will go to help wild tigers. She thinks that tiger farmers will take all the money for themselves. And she does not think that the poachers will stop killing tigers.
Voice 1
You see it only takes a poacher about twenty [20] dollars to kill a tiger. But it takes a farmer much more money to raise and feed a tiger. Miss Gabriel does not think that tiger farmers can compete with the prices poachers set.
Voice 2
Another argument against selling farm tigers is that it will form a new market. Most people who buy tiger parts do it because they believe they can get some of the energy from the tiger. Some people believe that if farm tigers are sold, people will only want parts from wild tigers. People will not want parts from tigers raised on farms.
Voice 1
Richard Damania is an economist. He believes that if tiger trade is made legal, more people will want to join in. He says that many people would not buy tiger parts on the black market. That is because it is illegal. But they may buy them if it is made legal. This would increase poaching. People would kill more tigers. Richard believes that if the tiger trade is made legal, people will kill the rest of the tigers.
People have many different ideas about how to save the tigers. Often, people disagree. But most people do agree on one thing: saving tigers is important.
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