Global demand for tiger skins and body parts, such as for use in traditional medicines, is so high that conservationists fear tigers may soon be hunted into extinction.

One controversial solution is to farm tigers specifically for the international market. Flooding the market with cheaper tiger parts makes it uneconomical to hunt them in the wild, the theory goes.

Chinese farms already rear about 4,000 tigers. The law currently forbids these animals to be killed, forcing breeders to wait for the animals to die naturally before selling their parts, but China may be preparing to lift these restrictions.

However, tiger farms and legalized trade may actually encourage more hunting and make illegal trade harder to police, because wild tiger parts would become more valuable than farmed specimens, according to the World Society for the Protection of Animals.