Today, fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild, but as many as 8,000 are still being held captive across China, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Some of these tiger facilities across Asia are licensed by national governments and are open to the public. Many are promoted and marketed as zoos, conservation centers, or tourist entertainment venues. But most are basically factory farms, speed-breeding tigers like livestock to satisfy mainly Chinese and Vietnamese demand for their body parts. The rest are small-scale basement or backyard breeding mills existing outside the law.

According to The National Geographic,the tiger breeding industry is still rampant throughout Asia and it’s fueling the illegal wildlife trade. Captive-bred tigers slip into the illegal international trade and feed a growing demand for tiger products, primarily in China. Especially popular are tiger pelts, which are used in luxury home decor, and their bones, an ingredient in expensive tiger-bone wine. This high-end market places a huge price tag on the head of every remaining tiger, and the wild populations are being decimated.

The commercial international trade in tigers and their parts has been banned since 1987 after a vote by CITES, an international treaty regulating the wildlife trade. In 2007, the CITES parties approved a measure stating that tigers shouldn’t be bred for trade either. Yet captive tigers are increasingly showing up alongside wild tigers on the illegal wildlife market.

Captive tiger breeding is a huge problem throughout Asia, but particularly in Thailand. These animals are being bred to fuel the cruel wildlife tourism and traditional medicine industries. At wildlife tourist attractions in Thailand, the baby tigers spend their lives being used and exploited as photo props for tourist selfies. When they are no longer cute or become too difficult to control, the tigers are then killed to meet the demand for traditional Asian medicine.

World Animal Protection is now urging Thailand authorities to enforce a ban on captive tiger breeding by 2020. The hope is that without captive breeding, fewer tigers will become victims of this horrific cycle of exploitation and abuse. Tigers are wildlife and all wild animals belong in the wild, but unfortunately the tiger cubs bred in captivity will never get to live in their natural environment.

Just like all animals suffering in the tourism industry, captive-bred cubs at tourist attractions endure immense cruelty. They’re kept in barren enclosures, with limited access to fresh food and water. Baby animals in tourism are cruelly trained, chained, and forced to frequently interact with visitors. They are forced to take selfies with tourists all day long, while loud noises and constant camera flashes surround them.

An official ban on captive tiger breeding from Thailand authorities would be a significant step in the right direction, since captive breeding continues to fuel the abusive tourism industry. Any captive animal that is being forced to perform tricks or take selfies with tourists is suffering immense abuse behind-the-scenes. And when they are not cute anymore, their future becomes even more grim. Ongoing investigations are still finding that many tigers in tourism end up killed for their body parts, used in traditional medicine and as home decorations.

Giant plastic catcher heads for Pacific Ocean clean-up

When a Dutch teenager went swimming in the sea in Greece seven years ago, he was shocked to see more plastic than fish.

In fact, Boyan Slat was so appalled by the pollution that he soon started to campaign for the oceans to be cleaned up.

For a long time, few people took him seriously. Here was a university drop-out with a far-fetched idea that surely could never work.

But this weekend, backed by major investment and some massive engineering, a vast plastic collection system will be towed out of San Francisco Bay.

Read more and see video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45438736

Mark,

We are one signature away from ending the needless killing of dolphins, sea turtles, whales and other species in California’s driftnet fishery.

Can you send an email to California Governor Jerry Brown today and ask him to sign SB 1017 to save the lives of turtles, dolphins, and whales?

This has been a long hard road and we are very close to victory. With your emails and postcards and letters, the bill passed both the state Senate and Assembly.

We are showing the rest of the nation that we can win new laws that protect animals and the environment. All we need now is the Governor’s signature.

Here’s how to contact him.

Click this link: https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/gov39mail/

Fill out the form asking him to sign the bill into law. See sample text in the PS.

Thanks,

PS – Thanks again. We are so closing to winning one for wildlife.

Here are the sample letters you can use/modify.

If you live in California:

Dear Governor Brown,

As a Californian, I urge you to sign sign SB 1017 into law to protect our marine wildlife.

Our natural environment defines California. SB 1017 will protect the animals that I care about including endangered sea turtles, whales, dolphins, sharks, and many other marine species.

Please sign SB 1017 to protect California’s precious marine resources.

Thanks.

If you live outside of California:

Dear Governor Brown,

As someone who has spent tourist dollars in California, I urge you to sign sign SB 1017 into law to protect marine wildlife.

One of the reasons I love California is its spectacular coast and the marine animals that makes it waters their home, such as dolphins, whales, and sea turtles.

Please sign SB 1017 to protect California’s precious marine resources.

Thanks.

Dear Mark;
SeaWorld confines animals to tiny concrete tanks at marine abusement parks across the country. Often housed with incompatible tankmates, dolphins, whales, and other animals are regularly drugged in order to manage stress-induced aggressive behavior and relieve the endless monotony of swimming in circles.

They break their teeth chewing in frustration on the metal bars and concrete sides of their tanks, and they’re forced to perform tricks for tourists in exchange for food—all in the name of entertainment.

It’s a business built on the suffering of intelligent, social animals who are denied everything that’s natural and important to them.

WestJet recently stopped its promotional support of SeaWorld, and travel giant Thomas Cook has committed to ending ticket sales to the parks. STA Travel, Taco Bell, and Alaska, JetBlue, and Southwest airlines as well as dozens of other responsible companies have already severed ties with the abusement parks.

ACTION – Please send a quick note to Air Canada urging it to join the wave of companies making the compassionate decision to cut ties with SeaWorld.

Thank you for your compassion for animals.

Sincerely yours,

John Di Leonardo, M.S.
Manager, Animals in Entertainment Campaigns
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

Jungle School is currently being shown on UK television.

What a brilliant series – training Orangutan babies who’s mothers have been killed by poachers etc to get ready for a life back in the wild.

But only after they have undertaken all their training at the Jungle School.

Superb !!

Orangutan dies after brutal pellet gun, stabbing attack

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A male orangutan on the Indonesian portion of Borneo died after being shot at least 130 times with an air gun and apparently being stabbed and clubbed, in the second known killing of a critically endangered orangutan this year.

Villagers spotted the wounded orangutan in a lake in the Kutai Timur district of East Kalimantan province on Sunday.

Local police chief Teddy Ristiawan said Wednesday that the great ape was still alive when he was taken Monday to a hospital in the town of Bontang.

·         4 elephants found poisoned to death by poachers

A statement from the Center for Orangutan Protection said the orangutan died early Tuesday.

An X-ray showed at least 130 air gun pellets in its body, including more than 70 in its head, the center said.

It said an autopsy found the animal had been blinded as a result of the shooting and also had 17 open wounds believed to be caused by sharp objects. Its left thigh, right chest and left hand were bruised from blunt object trauma.

Ramadhani, a manager of habitat protection at the center who goes by one name, said the death was a terrible event in the history of conflict between orangutans and humans in Indonesia.

“The 130 pellets within the body of a primate is a new record, the most ever,” he said.

In mid-January, an orangutan was found decapitated and shot more than a dozen times with an air gun in Central Kalimantan, environmental news website Mongabay reported. Police arrested two rubber farmers suspected in the killing, it said.

The number of orangutans in Borneo and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, recognized as separate species and both classified as critically endangered, has fallen precipitously since the 1970s.

Orangutans are a protected species in Indonesia and Malaysia, but deforestation has dramatically reduced their habitat and brought them into contact with farmers and plantation workers who kill them to protect crops and for meat.

About 40 percent of Borneo’s forests have been lost since the early 1970s and another huge swath of forest is expected to be converted to plantation agriculture in the next decade.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/orangutan-killed-borneo-indonesia-pellet-gun-stabbing-attack-endangered-species/