Asia holds thousands of captive tigers in farming operations that supply tiger bone wine and skin markets. These farms represent a profound welfare and conservation crisis.
Captive tiger welfare in farming operations is catastrophically poor. Tigers are among the most wide-ranging large carnivores — wild individuals maintain territories of hundreds of square kilometers. Farm tigers live in small concrete cells without enrichment, social complexity, or the ability to express natural behavior. Overcrowding leads to disease and aggression. The complete absence of hunting behavior — the defining activity of a tigers existence — represents profound deprivation. These animals exist only as biological raw material for a trade that provides no conservation benefit and undermines wild tiger protection by normalizing tiger product markets.