An estimated 8,000 tigers still inhabit semi-legal tiger farms in China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, where they are displayed to visitors, fattened up for meat and then slaughtered for their skins, bones and body parts, according to an academic article published on Wednesday.

European officials have discovered illegal tiger farms operating in the Czech Republic and experts suspect other countries also house such facilities, thousands of miles away from where they had previously only thought they existed, the Guardian reported Monday.