It is drizzling in the four-hectare wildlife park and several south
China tigers are roaming in the grass or lying under a protruding
rock.
Nothing remarkable in that, except that these tigers are being
trained to live in the wild -- and getting used to the rain is part
of the process.
There are fewer than 100 south China tigers living worldwide, and
only 20 to 30 live in the wild. The rest reside at zoos and the
species is listed as one of the world's ten most endangered
animals.
But at Meihuashan South China Tiger Propagation and Wildlife
Adaptation Research Center, in Shanghang County, Longyan city in
east China's Fujian Province, a major program to raise their
numbers was launched in 1998.
It
is hoped the number of south China tigers in Meihuashan will
increase from 8 to 100 by 2010.
The program, which was included by the State Forestry
Administration in its development plan last August, requires an
investment of over 100 million yuan (US$12.1 million), and spending
in 2002 and 2003 will be 20.36 million yuan (US$2.45 million).
This will establish a natural habitat for south China tigers, with
an area of 467 hectares, where the tigers will have to hunt and
kill for themselves.
Fu
Wenyuan, a research fellow and tiger keeper with the center, says
three tigers came from Suzhou Zoo, in east China's Jiangsu
Province, in September 1998 and another three from Guilin Tiger and
Bear Mountain Farm, in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region, in June 2000.
"These tigers even feared chickens, goats or human beings as a
result of captivity when they first came here, but through
wilderness adaptation training, the six tigers have shown signs of
improving their abilities to adapt to life in the wilderness,
including hunting," says Fu.
The tigers from Suzhou escape to the cages on cold or rainy days,
but the Guilin tigers prefer the outdoor environment and show
stronger capabilities in capturing animals, Fu adds.
Two of the Guilin tigers have mated successfully, and the tigress
gave birth to three cubs last July, of which two have survived.
"The tigress loved the cubs a lot and fed the two cubs fully on her
own, instead of leaving it to artificial means, which suggests a
resumption of her natural abilities," says Fu.
The cubs, now one year old, weigh 80 kg each. Thanks to the special
training in wilderness adaptation, they both prefer the wilderness
rather than cages, and will take the initiative in attacking and
capturing goats, consuming 20 to 30 so far.
"Though south China tigers have regained some of their natural
abilities to hunt and kill for subsistence, the existing tigers
cannot fully adapt to life in the wilderness, and adaptation will
only be gradually realized through generations of younger tigers,"
says Fu.
"To let south China tigers to return to nature requires a guarantee
of the whole food chain for the beast of prey," says Fu, stressing
the necessity of restoring the biosphere on which the tigers rely
for subsistence.
(Xinhua News
Agency July 27, 2002)