Tuesday 24 March 2009

The Sportsman's Handbook on Skinning a Tiger

skinning a tiger
The Sportsman's Handbook on skinning a tiger is still available on Amazon and, in fact, very widely. Of course it is not just about skinning tigers. I believe that the books full title is Rowland Ward: The Sportsman's Handbook to Practical Collecting, Preserving and Artistic Setting up of Trophies and Specimens, (1882, 2nd edn). There are later editions: Rowland Ward's Sporstman's Handbook-15th Edition, for example.

Mr Rowland Ward wrote many books about various aspects of hunting at a time when it was considered perfectly natural (late 19th century). It still is by a large section of the community, sadly. And some people don't even go into the jungle to hunt tigers, they do it in a zoo! Take the people who tranquillized (with home made dart guns) a rare Siberian tiger in a zoo in central China (Yichang City in Hubei province) (src: http://www.newser.com). The animal had been stunned, killed, beheaded and skinned for its body parts. Tigers in China are just too valuable for their body parts. The Chinese have set up numerous captive breeding programs (tiger farms) to produce the parts. It is the ultimate indignity to the world's most popular animal.

I wonder if these people who killed this Siberian tiger used a copy of Mr Ward's The Sportsman's Handbook on skinning a tiger? You know I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did. Rowland Ward is still in business. There is a website selling all things to do with hunting. Even a book called, "The Big Five", referring to the best big animals to hunt and for trophies. The collection of wild animals referred to includes the tiger and lion and provides information on, for example, the "best places to go today for each species, and a discussion of where the best trophy quality may be obtained" (I have taken the liberty to quote, I hope you don't mind).

tiger behind wire cage
Photo by International Tiger Coalition


See: Tiger Farms and be disgusted.

The only form of tiger hunting that I know about are canned hunts, in which tigers are released from captive programs into a limited area and shot by some moron for a trophy. The Rowland Ward website clearly endorses this kind of behavior.



The Sportsman's Handbook on Skinning a Tiger to Bengal Tiger Facts

The Sportsman's Handbook on Skinning a Tiger -- Photo of drawing of tiger being skinned published under Wikimedia® creative commons license license = Attribution-ShareAlike License

3 comments:

  1. How can there NOT be any posts? Or outright outrage? I am sickened by the pics displayed. Why would anyone want to do this to any animal, let alone a beautiful beast like this? Ignorant men mostly. I know so-called "hunters" do not see animals the way most people do. They sort of see them the same way they see women. As trophies, as though this were a true fair fight-to-the-death finish. Do these men actually tell people they "caught and killed" this gorgeous animal? Animals are capable of planning, grouping, loving and feeling. Much like a human. Do you know the outrage it would cause if human babies were allowed to be hunted and skinned? I see humans and animals in much the same way. Horrific and barbaric and robbing the world of one the world's most beautiful animals. I would be ashamed and embarassed to hang this "trophy". You should be too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. you people need something else in your lives. to take issue with a book written in the late nineteenth century, because you suspect it acts as the reference for the deviants responsible for the illicit Chinese tiger trade is moronic. and to take issue with Amazon for peddling this historic literature is indeed a moronic move.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Response to last comment. I expressed my opinion as I am entitled to do. I expressed myself politely and argued my case.

    You have simply been rude and insulted me and made no arguments.

    You really are a idiot and you probably like to skin cats or eat them or some such barbaric crude thing.

    ReplyDelete

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