Round Table China Did I say too much or not enough?
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Mar 2, 2026 They debate a tiger park's rotating fasting plan after overfeeding during the Spring Festival and why visitor feeding became controversial. They weigh conservation, finance, and ethics around captive tigers and management responsibilities. They also explore the social cost of oversharing, research on openness building trust, and how to find boundaries and reciprocity in conversation.
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Visitor Feeding Can Support Conservation
- Visitor feeding can fund conservation while also serving as public engagement that creates stakeholders.
- Harbin's Siberian Tiger Park sold raw meat to tourists for bus-window feeding, causing seasonal overfeeding that prompted a rotating fasting program.
Fasting Mirrors Wild Tiger Rhythms
- Park officials framed the fasting as scientific management to restore natural hunger rhythms and prevent digestive stress.
- Expert Jiang Guangshun said periodic fasting mirrors wild metabolic patterns and is a standard practice at some tiger facilities.
Regulate Feeding With Science And Transparency
- Manage feeding programs with clear rules, scientific oversight, and pricing that reflects conservation costs.
- Fei Fei urged parks to regulate feeding, use it to observe behavior, and explain its purpose to visitors to balance biology and finance.