/kloc-What happened to the "Xionghu Villa" where 0/000 tigers were used for family planning?

In the picturesque Guilin area, there used to be a Xiongsen Xionghu Villa, which contained more than 1 100 tigers, and another name of this villa was Guangxi Rare and Endangered Wildlife Rescue Center and Breeding Base.

Different from other zoos, this villa was built by businessman Zhou Weisen with an investment of more than 300 million yuan. If you wander around this villa, you can see many kinds of tigers, such as Northeast Tiger, South China Tiger, Bengal Tiger and White Tiger, which are very rare in the wild. Even in other zoos, there may be only 1-2 species, which is not as complete as here.

Although there are so many tigers living here, and there are so many tigers, it is very rare. However, the controversy surrounding this villa has never been broken from its establishment to its demolition.

Controversy about villas

Boss Zhou Weisen invested in this villa in the early 1990s. China did not ban the trade of tiger bones, and touted tiger bones as an "aphrodisiac" in Southeast Asia and China (in fact, it had no effect). Therefore, Chinese patent medicines containing tiger bone, tiger bone wine and tiger bone powder are very sought after in the market, and the price is very high.

Moreover, at that time, wild animals could be "reasonably developed and utilized", so this villa originally planned to make corresponding products with tigers that died naturally while protecting them, so as to maintain the healthy operation of the villa and even realize profits.

1993, in order to prohibit poaching and prevent poached tiger bones from being sold as tigers that died naturally, China banned all trade activities, medicinal use and any commercial activities of tiger bones. This forced the villa to turn to another business model: selling tickets.

1997, the villa moved from Pingnan to Guilin, a tourist city, and it is planned to use Guilin tourists to drive the number of tourists in the villa. Moreover, in order to attract tourists, the villa also introduced animals such as bears and lions. However, unlike the expected hot scene, the number of tourists in the villa is small and the ticket income is limited. In addition, the villa is still dominated by old-age tigers, and tigers feed on meat. A tiger costs more than 2400 yuan a month, so the tiger's food costs tens of millions of yuan every year. Due to the large number of tigers, the demand for food is large, which exceeds the operating capacity of the villa. In addition, the ticket income can not offset the tiger's food expenses, labor costs, operating expenses and so on. , making the villa funding gap larger.

In order to reduce the economic burden of the villa, the villa has to let these tigers implement the "family planning" policy, let the tigers who have entered sexual maturity postpone their first pregnancy, and let some females who could have bred and bred not participate in breeding. However, even so, there are still more than 100 tiger babies in the villa every year, and this number may quadruple if the birth is released.

Although the state regularly allocates funds to the villa, in order to prevent the funds from being abused and misappropriated, it is generally clear where the money can only be used. For example, China once allocated 7.5 million yuan to the villa for the expansion and scientific research of tiger houses, but the villa had to worry about the food expenses of tigers.

In order to relieve the pressure of the villa, the tigers here have to "work" to make money. The so-called work here refers to renting it to some zoos for exhibitions, so that the villa can not bear the food expenses when the tigers work, and can also get an income from raising other tigers in the villa. However, this method has not completely solved the villa management crisis.

These tigers in the villa can neither be released into the wild privately, nor can they be killed at will, nor can they starve to death on purpose, so the owner of the villa described himself as "riding a tiger."

Of course, the most controversial issue around the villa is bone tonic wine. Although this wine is not marked with tiger bones, it is controversial because it sells bone tonic wine while raising tigers.

In this regard, some experts believe that the large-scale captive tiger is likely to protect the tiger as an excuse, and the real purpose is to pursue profiteering and sell tiger bone wine.

Controversy about tiger breeding

Although there are more than 1000 tigers here, and there are many kinds, in the opinion of experts, the villa does not breed tigers scientifically and reasonably.

Tigers are actually very fertile. In the wild, tigers can give birth to 2-4 cubs every time they are pregnant, but the living conditions in the wild are bad, and only a few cubs can survive to adulthood.

Tigers don't get estrus during the brooding period, and tigresses don't get estrus again until their cubs are about 18 months old. However, if tigers die because of various accidents, they will be in estrus in a short time, so if you want to increase the number of tigers quickly, you just need not let them take care of their children by themselves (it seems that it is not only humans who feel tired of taking care of their children).

The reason why there are so many tigers in Xionghu Mountain Villa is probably due to the excessive reproduction of tigers in the early stage, which led to the excessive growth of population and the soaring cost of subsequent feeding, so that tigers had to take family planning measures in the later stage.

In addition to its strong reproductive ability, tigers have not formed complete reproductive isolation among subspecies. For example, the South China tiger can cross with the Indian zhina tiger and give birth to hybrids.

Therefore, if there is no population gene file of tigers, it will easily lead to the hybridization of tigers of different species, so that the blood of tigers will eventually be impure. Professor Wang, a feline expert from Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, once said after seeing Xiongsen Xionghu Mountain Villa that there may not even be a pure South China tiger in the mountain villa, which is very unfavorable for the genetic protection of South China tigers.

Where did Xionghu Mountain Villa go?

20 19 Due to the new policy planning, Xionghu Villa in Guilin City began to be demolished.

Regarding the relocation location of Xionghu Mountain Villa, a notice on 20 12 showed that Xionghu Mountain Villa will be relocated to Lingui District, where it will be built into a comprehensive service body integrating wild farming, scientific research, research and development of biological agents, production and tourism.