VietNamNet Bridge – The owner of an illegal tiger farm in Nghe An disclosed--in addition to raising them, the tiger farmers have to show the role of "nannies" who take care of tigers as their babies. They must be also veterinarians to cure the illness of tigers. And tiger raising is highly risky because tiger farmers can lose tens of thousands of US dollars at any time.



Continuing our conversation after taking us to the tiger cage, C. continued to talk about the struggle in this “weird job."

"Profit from this job is huge but it is very risky. This job requires large capital, the cost for food is very high and we can lose tens of thousands of US dollars in minutes if tigers are sick and the breeders lack of experience,” C. said.

C. said he had to learn experience in raising tigers from many people. He is a nanny and also a veterinarian for tigers.

C. said it is the most dangerous if tigers evacuate white feces. If it happens, the breeder can do only one thing: preparing for embalming the tigers and try to sell them.



''Many tiger farmers have to cry when their tigers die. Some families just bought a pair of tigers but both of them died after several days. Some lost 6-7 tigers, worth hundreds of thousands of USD. It is very difficult to raise tigers. Not many people dare to raise tigers because the capital is huge while tigers are easy to die.

“There are many households going bankrupt because their tigers died repeatedly. Without fate, you cannot raise tigers. As my tigers as big like this, I’m no longer afraid that they can die. Even if they die, I can freeze them to sell them cheap,” C. said.

H., C’s brother, said the risk in this business is very high. Baby tigers of under 3kg die pretty much, so the source of frozen baby tigers for alcohol soaking is always abundant.

A breeding tiger is priced a few hundreds of million dong (tens of thousands of USD), but if they die and are frozen, they can be sold for only VND20 to VND30 million ($1,000-1,500).

''There are families who bought two breeding tigers and both of them died. The entire family cried. They are still terrified until now,” C said.

“Tigers catch cold very often. We give them pills for humans. We heal them by our experience because we do not dare to invite doctors. Luckily, they were well again”, C. said.

According to C. between 5kg and under 30kg is the most dangerous period for tigers because they are just bred and their resistance is still weak. If they are over 30kg, they are almost right.




The price for breeding tigers of 3-5kg is about VND180 million ($9,000)/tiger. The larger tigers are cheaper because they are more difficult to breed, C said.

“Taking the tigers out of the home of the seller, the tigers have become ours. So even if they are dead immediately when we’ve just received them from the seller, the seller is not responsible for the death. So breeders usually raise at least two tigers, in case one of them die,” said C.

According to C., tigers are very voracious. Each month he had to pay about VND6 million ($300) for food, mainly beef, pork and chicken. The cost of food will decrease when the tigers are mature because at that time they only need chicken heads, legs and wings. Averagely, tigers gain around 5kg per month.

''These four tigers haven been bred for more than one year. They grow pretty fast. Now they are over 100kg each. They are ready for sale,'' C. continued.

C. said adult tigers are sold for making tiger bone glue. One kilo of living tiger is VND4 - 5 million ($200-250)/kg, including shipping charges. Buyers are businessmen and officials. The tigers are anesthetized and transported at night.

C. said perhaps because of economic difficulties, it is more difficult to find customers.

Raising tigers at home for over one year caused a lot of troubles for C. Since C had taken care of the tigers since they were small, he could not leave them alone for over two hours. His father and brother could not replace him to take care of the tigers because they were afraid of being attacked by the animals.

C. said once the tigers were on the loose because he forgot to lock the door. But fortunately at that time the tigers were small and their escape were immediately discovered.

It is most important to keep secret of raising tigers because it is illegal.

How to raise tigers without being detected and transporting tigers without being caught? Let’s discover it in the next story.

Phan Song La