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Two Chinese Tigers born in captivity flew to South Africa on Monday from the Capital International Airport in Beijing to learn how to live in the wild in Africa.

 

Born in the Shanghai Zoo early this year, they are the first Chinese Tigers to go to Africa. The female is named "Guotai", or peaceful country, and the male is called "Xiwang", or hope.

 

The training is part of an agreement signed last year by the State Forestry Administration (SFA), London-based Save China's Tigers, and Chinese Tigers South Africa of South Africa.

 

According to the schedule, they will arrive in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa on Tuesday, via Hong Kong. After two weeks of quarantine at the National Zoo, they will be sent to a 500-hectare wild zone called Makopani north of the capital. There three experts will teach them wilderness survival skills, such as finding their own food.

 

The Chinese Tiger (panthera tigris amoyensis), from which other sub-species such as the Siberian Tiger evolved, is a critically endangered tiger sub-species native to south China. It is listed as one of the world's ten most endangered animals.

 

Today, fewer than 30 Chinese Tigers remain in the wild while about 60 survive in Chinese zoos. Some experts from other countries predicted that they would disappear by 2010 if they are not well protected.

 

China has not sufficiently grasped how to train its tigers, which has held back the conservation and sustainable development of Chinese Tigers, said Lu Jun, a researcher of the SFA.

 

An experimental reserve covering over 100 sq. km. will be set up in China for the Chinese Tigers, and natural vegetation and other animal groups will be restored within the reserve, according to the agreement.

 

The selection of the reserve will begin in October in south China, said Quan Li, an official of Save China's Tigers.

 

All the Chinese Tigers that finish the training will be sent to the reserve. The first trainees are expected to be reintroduced into the wild in 2008, coinciding with the Olympic Games in Beijing.

 

China should learn from South Africa, which has had a successful experience in combining wildlife protection with social and economic development, said an official with the wildlife protection department of the SFA.

 

The zone in South Africa is said to have successfully trained some Siberian Tigers to live in the wild.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2003)