Cash Crunch Means Tigers Face Starvation

Seventy-three rare Siberian tigers saved from slaughter by Chinese law face starvation because the breeders who raised them for their bones can’t afford to feed them.

China recently began enforcing a ban on slaughtering the species that has saved the 73 tigers from slaughter but not from starvation at the China Feline Captive Breeding Center in Mudanjiang in Manchuria in northeastern China.

The government-funded center was originally established to raise the big cats for their bones, used in traditional Chinese medicines. The center by law cannot sell the animals, which devour at least three or four cattle a day.

But without more funds, the center will have to shut down by the end of the year, the newspaper said.