Karl Ammann has undertaken dozens of dangerous investigations to expose wildlife traffickers. This is his riskiest yet.
This story tells us that there are now more tigers in cages, essentially commodities for Asian consumers, than there are tigers in the wild.
Excerpt from this Washington Post story:
Over the past century or so, the tiger population has plunged in the wild, dropping from an estimated 100,000 to fewer than 4,000, while the number in captivity has exploded to more than 12,500. Nowhere else is the animal’s commodification more complete than in tiger farming, where it is raised, butchered for parts and sold for tens of thousands of dollars. And nowhere else have these farms operated with greater impunity than in Laos, an obscure communist nation whose own wild tigers have nearly all been killed. Ammann was one of the few people who’d seen inside the country’s farms.
When I’d first spoken to him in June of last year, I’d expected to find someone who was, if not optimistic, then at least hopeful. In a smattering of countries in South Asia, the tiger’s population appeared to be stabilizing, even as it cratered elsewhere. And since 2016, international authorities and some conservationists had applauded Laos, home to some of Asia’s biggest wildlife traffickers, as it announced overhauls to finally clean up the trade. Shops trading in bones and wildlife merchandise were to cease. All three of the country’s illegal tiger farms, which stored 700 tigers, were ordered to stop farming and convert into zoos and conservation centers. No new facilities breeding endangered wildlife for commercial purposes would open. From the outside, things seemed to be getting a bit better. Even Britain’s Prince William had reportedly taken up the cause.
But Ammann was neither optimistic nor hopeful, and, if anything, seemed offended by the suggestion. In our first substantive phone conversation, he immediately plunged into the arcana of tiger farming in Laos, citing operational tiger farms and going on and on about “lip service” and how we were being taken for “bloody fools.” While Ammann vented, I searched for images of him. He looked the same in every one: mustachioed and grimacing, an expression of the frustration and futility in his voice.
