Breeders reap profit from craze for mastiffs
Source: Xinhua |
May 2, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
KUNGA Tseten lost 18 Tibetan mastiffs, dogs he valued at more than US$1 million, when a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Yushu two years ago, but he is confident of recovering the losses in a couple of years.
He's using his backyard to raise nine mastiffs of different sizes, which are worth more than 1 million yuan (US$158,494) in total.
"They are all the assets my family has got," he said while attending a three-day Tibetan mastiff exhibition in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province.
The event, the second of its kind, ended last night after giving attendees the chance to discuss a rapidly developing source of trade and fortune.
Breeding Tibetan mastiffs has become a major means of livelihood for many herdsman families in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Li Jianhai, president of the Qinghai Tibetan Mastiff Association, said.
Yushu is one of the country's major suppliers of Tibetan mastiffs besides Tibet's Tsomey and Nagchu.
Of the several hundred mastiff keepers traveling from across the country to the exhibition, two-thirds were from Qinghai's Tibetan-inhabited areas.
Around 20,000 people from such areas have made profits from mastiff breeding, Li said, explaining that some work on mastiff farms, some process feed and others engage in mastiff-related transportation and tourism.
The Tibetan mastiff industry burgeoned in the 1990s, when the "new rich" in coastal cities such as Guangzhou came to regard owning a mastiff as a sign of social status and wealth, thus stirring a craze, said Li Quanli, vice president of the National Kennel Club of the China Animal Agriculture Association.
"Prices of Tibetan mastiffs have soared since 2000," he said.
"An ordinary mastiff may be priced at more than 100,000 yuan and fine breeds at a minimum of 1 million yuan."
He added: "The transfer of gains from middlemen to herdsmen has been a major change in the province's mastiff industry in the past year or two."
Kunga Tseten plans to keep breeding Tibetan mastiffs for a lifetime and "sell every one of them at the highest possible price."
He's using his backyard to raise nine mastiffs of different sizes, which are worth more than 1 million yuan (US$158,494) in total.
"They are all the assets my family has got," he said while attending a three-day Tibetan mastiff exhibition in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province.
The event, the second of its kind, ended last night after giving attendees the chance to discuss a rapidly developing source of trade and fortune.
Breeding Tibetan mastiffs has become a major means of livelihood for many herdsman families in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Li Jianhai, president of the Qinghai Tibetan Mastiff Association, said.
Yushu is one of the country's major suppliers of Tibetan mastiffs besides Tibet's Tsomey and Nagchu.
Of the several hundred mastiff keepers traveling from across the country to the exhibition, two-thirds were from Qinghai's Tibetan-inhabited areas.
Around 20,000 people from such areas have made profits from mastiff breeding, Li said, explaining that some work on mastiff farms, some process feed and others engage in mastiff-related transportation and tourism.
The Tibetan mastiff industry burgeoned in the 1990s, when the "new rich" in coastal cities such as Guangzhou came to regard owning a mastiff as a sign of social status and wealth, thus stirring a craze, said Li Quanli, vice president of the National Kennel Club of the China Animal Agriculture Association.
"Prices of Tibetan mastiffs have soared since 2000," he said.
"An ordinary mastiff may be priced at more than 100,000 yuan and fine breeds at a minimum of 1 million yuan."
He added: "The transfer of gains from middlemen to herdsmen has been a major change in the province's mastiff industry in the past year or two."
Kunga Tseten plans to keep breeding Tibetan mastiffs for a lifetime and "sell every one of them at the highest possible price."
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