Website offers tigers ‘bred in India’ for sale

It is illegal to trade in Indian tigers, either live or dead, or breed them privately in India, as per the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. While the sale of Indian tigers is illegal, there are other online sites that already sell those bred outside this country.

It is not clear where these tigers come from. The buytigers.com website registration is from Italy, and the registrant is one Adalot Tripiciano, who is also the creator of Adalot, a virtual city with parts and buildings that are available to advertisers.

The website further says that it does not sell two tigers to the same person, as this poses a “safety threat” to the animals, adding that it does not sell Siberian White tigers. According to the website, it also does not ship tigers to areas “not fitting” their climate needs. All prices are in dollars.

People for Ethical Treatment to Animals (PETA), an International animal rights group, has written to the Ministry of Environment and Forests asking for investigation and action. “The matter has come to us and we are investigating it and verifying the authenticity of the claims,” Reena Mitra, additional director, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, said.

Some claims on the website, though, seem to go against its authenticity. The website claims that tigers are “harmless” and that the tigresses are “already trained to be nice with its owner, to eat meat and respond to basilar voice orders”.

Activists point out though that even if the website is a hoax, the solicitation of the sale of a tiger online is similar to other websites, which peddle protected animals. “We wrote to the MoEF as the matter concerned Indian tigers and illegal breeding centres. Even if the website is a hoax, just soliciting the sale of a tiger is outrageous,” said a PETA official.

What is a worrying prospect though is the established nature of the tiger as a privately owned animal in countries like theUS. Wildanimalworld.com, advertises the sale of four-day-old tiger cubs for $2,500. Contact details for the office are based in Louisiana, US. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, in its report on wildlife trade on the Internet, says that wildanimalworld.com advertised the sale of a two-year-old tiger for $ 70,000.

Though tigers are protected under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, keeping tigers captive or as pets on farms is a legal practice in the US as well as parts of Africa.