The State Forestry Administration said the park will be enlarged from 400,000 square meters to one million square meters. It will be renamed Breeding Base for Siberian Tigers.

The expansion will allow the park to increase the number of Siberian tigers from 270 to 500 by 2005 and 1,000 by the year 2010.

The total cost of the project is estimated at 30 million yuan (US$3.61 million).

A feasibility study has been completed.

According to Wang Ligang, the park's general manager, construction of the Siberian tiger breeding base has been included in the country's 50-year program for the protection of wildlife and nature reserves, which was initiated in 2000.

Experts say the world's tigers are on the brink of extinction. The number of five major varieties of tigers has dropped from between 100,000 and 200,000 in the middle of the last century to between 6,000 and 7,000 now.

Artificial breeding has proved effective in slowing the downward trend. The Harbin park for tigers had only eight Siberian tigers when it opened in 1986.

With its 270 Siberian tigers now, the park has become the world's largest breeding center for artificially bred Siberian tigers.

(eastday.com November 6, 2002)