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Hong Kong outrage over tiger consumption is pure hypocrisy

Alex Frew McMillan

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A property developer in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region was last month jailed for eating meat from at least three tigers and drinking their blood. A tiger penis was found in his fridge and he admitted to spending big bucks in Guangdong to have the tigers slaughtered.

Hongkongers like to think they're above the stranger appetites of their mainland cousins, but there are still some antiquated ideas here about our relationship with wild animals.

Illustration: Bay Leung
Illustration: Bay Leung

Take the hypocrisy surrounding the city's licences for owning ivory. Why are ivory traders treated differently to restaurant owners, whose licences are searchable online? Why has the sudden "privacy" of rich hoarders of expensive collectibles become paramount? And why are we even trading the body parts of endangered animals?

On a recent press trip, I got chatting with a mainland journalist about the sad plight of the rhino. "Well, you know, we [Chinese] think rhino horn helps a lot of diseases, particularly it aids digestion," the otherwise sensible editor said.

Rhino horn is made of keratin, the same substance that makes up human nails and animal hooves. You might as well eat your fingernails. That advice was met with silence.

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