In the living room of a house at the end of a narrow country road in central Vietnam, a little way off the main highway, the skeleton of a tiger was laid out on the floor—the only complete one they had for sale, the man told the pair of visitors.

It was an attractive offer for someone looking to make tiger bone wine, a coveted brew made from bones soaked in rice wine, but what the visitors were interested in were the live tigers.

After some discussion, they were taken to a nearby house. Whoever owned it clearly had some money. It was nicely painted, with a large cement front yard, plenty of trees, and several expensive SUVs out front. It was