A South China tiger, one of fewer than 100 in existence, took
off from a Shanghai airport yesterday for a romantic mission to
Africa that might help save the species.
The four-year-old male, known only by his breeding registry
number "327," is to be paired with a young female of the same
species in a South African reserve.
The idea is for the tigers to mix in a wild environment, breed
and brush up on their hunting skills before being returned to their
native habitat in China.
China's Suzhou South China Tiger Reserve volunteered the male
tiger for the mating mission.
"South Africa offers land, expertise and prey animals, so it
facilitates the tiger re-wilding in a much quicker and faster way,"
said Li Quan, founder of the charity Save China's Tigers.
She said China had initiated experiments but they did not go very
far, although plans are afoot eventually to bring the tigers back
to a reserve in China.
With only about 10 to 30 left in the wild and another 60 in
captivity, the Chinese sub-species of the tiger clan is on the
brink of extinction.
Two pairs have already been sent to the 33,000-hectare
(81,510-acre) Laohu Valley Reserve in South Africa's Free State
Province since September 2003: a male named "Hope," his prospective
partner "Cathay," and a younger pair, "Tiger Woods" and "Madonna."
"Laohu" means "tiger" in Chinese.
Since Hope died of illness two years ago, reserve officials have
been seeking a new mate for Cathay, who is now reaching sexual
maturity, and number 327 seemed a perfect match.
"He is a very fertile stud tiger, one of the finer tigers here,"
said David Chen, director of the Suzhou reserve, which is home to
14 of the striped cats.
Feared as man-eaters but revered as majestic symbols of the
wild, the South China tigers and other sub-species are being
squeezed out in Asia by habitat loss as human populations
swell.
The re-wilding program has had initial success as the tigers
moved from hunting birds to bigger prey such as the blesbok, a
white-faced African antelope that is similar in size to the deer
species the tigers hunt in China.
Tiger 327 will make the three-day jet and helicopter journey,
via Hong Kong and Johannesburg, in a cargo box with only water,
although Zhang Lin of Save China's Tigers said tigers can go for
five days without food in the wild.
Conservationists are already planning for the re-wilded group's
return to China.
"We would be choosing from a few areas from the original habitat
of the South China tigers to rebuild," said Lu Jun, associate
research professor at the National Wildlife Research and
Development Center.
Save China's Tigers said this was still in the planning stage
but sites had already been identified in Zixi in Jiangxi Province and in Liuyang in Hunan Province, both in southeast China.
(China Daily April 24, 2007)
