Save China's Tigers

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Save China's Tigers, short term SCT is an international charitable foundation based in the HK, US and UK (Office in London) which aims at saving the big cats of China, and especially at saving the Chinese tigers (South China Tigers) from extinction. It also has branches in Mainland China and South Africa.

Contents 1 Aims 2 South China Tigers rewilding training in Africa 3 Effects of tigers on South Africa's ecosystem and biodiversity 4 History 5 The tigers involved 6 Support from experts and scientists 7 Objections and obstacles 8 Media coverage of the Save China's Tigers project 9 References 10 See also 11 External links

[edit] Aims

The organisation's aim is to raise awareness of the plight of the Chinese tiger and to strive for its protection and preservation through public education, introduction and experimentation of advanced conservation models in China, and raising funds to support these initiatives. It also aims to act as a liaison for all those organisations concerned with the conservation of China's wildlife, biodiversity and habitat.

Save China's Tigers has taken on an ambitious project to reverse the fate of the South China Tiger from the brink of extinction by taking them out of zoos, breeding them, let them regain their hunting abilities and reintroduce them back to China's wild.^[1] The Organisation wish to save the South China Tiger using this new method of rehabilitation and reintroduction.

No captive-born large predators have ever been successfully reintroduced into the wild before.^[2] This is the first ever experiment by any organization and country, to attempt to save a large carnivore by re-introducing them into the wild. To achieve this unprecedented goal, Save China's Tigers is using a combination of in-situ and ex-situ conservation. The organization is aiming to set a precedent for international wildlife conservation and for zoos throughout the world.^[3]

[edit] South China Tigers rewilding training in Africa

Save China's Tigers understands that the tigers must know how hunt prey and has to be able to defend itself, in order to survive in the wild. Once in captivity for long, an animal will lose its ability to survive in the wild, such as skills like hunting and self-defence. It will inevitably die once released. Thus Save China's Tigers started a re-habilitation programme to help the tigers regain their surviving skills in the wild. Some re-habilitation steps taken by the project includes feeding the tiger cubs with carcasses of small game. Once the tigers are eating and opening the new food items, live animals similar to those taken dead will be occasionally introduced to the cubs. Larger food items and larger live animals will also be used for the rewilding training subsequently.

The prey species provided for the training are small animals like rabbits and guinea fowls and medium sized antelopes like blesbucks and springbucks. There are plans to introduce larger games like the Blue wildebeest, the tigers have been provided with wildebeest carcasses and will soon be presented with live wildebeests for them to hunt. The prey needed for wild training of the tigers do not have to be the same as those in the original food chain of the tigers. Tigers’ food menu is fairly extensive: deer, antelope and wild boars are tigers’ primary food in their habitat. Once a tiger knows how to hunt the same sized wild animals, it will not mind what kind of prey animal it is.^[4]

[edit] Effects of tigers on South Africa's ecosystem and biodiversity

There are some people who oppose the project because they are afraid that the tigers, which are not naturally found in Africa, and being considered as an alien species will affect South African biodiversity negatively if they were brought to Africa.

However, the project will not face this problem as Laohu Valley reserve is converted from 17 pieces of defunct sheep farms that were overgrazed and therefore no healthy ecosystems exist there at all. Plus the tigers are in camps - fenced off, hence the South China Tigers would not be able to roam outside of Laohu Valley reserve thus there is no contact between the South China Tigers and any healthy eco-system that exist nearby. On the other hand, instead of having negative effects on Africa's biodiversity, the project actually have positive effects on the biodiversity. This is because the defunct sheep farms are restored and converted to wildlife reserve. The reserve will be used for the protection of other African animals like cheetahs after the Chinese tigers are returned to China. This can be considered the contribution of the Chinese tiger to the biodiversity of South Africa. Without the Chinese tigers, the project would never purchase the land for the project in South Africa.^[5]

Furthermore, due to the action spearheaded by Save China's Tigers, other efforts to convert defunct sheep farms to wildlife farms in this area have been gaining speed. In other words, SCT is a leader in restoring South African biodiversity in the area of Phillippolis of Free State in South Africa.

The prey menu of tiger and lion is alike. There should not be any side-effect to the local ecology at all.^[6]

[edit] History

"Save China's Tiger" was founded by Li Quan, former fashion executive at Gucci, Benetton and Fila in Italy. When Li Quan realized the dire state of the South China Tigers in the wild and saw the poor conditions in which captive South China Tigers were living in China several years ago, she devoted herself to save the tigers.^[7] She then established the charitable foundation Save China’s Tigers in UK and subsequently in the US in 2002 and Hong Kong in 2003. She engineered the Chinese Tiger Conservation Model after observing and analysing how wildlife conservation and eco-tourism have succeeded in Africa. In 2001, Li Quan proposed to China to use South African expertise to help China’s Chinese Tiger Rehabilitation & Reintroduction project which the Chinese started in the 1990s and invited South African Team to visit China. These are the initial steps which kickstarted the whole project.^[8]

[edit] The tigers involved

Li Quan persuaded the Chinese government to allow her to bring several captive South China tigers to Africa, where they can start their rewilding training. To date, five South China tigers have left the zoos of China and sent to South Africa for re-wilding training. These tigers include:

1. Hope, born on 17 February 2003, got his name from readers of the Sunday People, a British newspaper. He died on 20 August 2005 in South Africa. His autopsy report suggested that the primary cause of death was pneumonia and heart failure. Conclusion was that the tiger was suffering from immunosuppression, supported by the presence of opportunistic bacteria that are normally only found replicating in animals that are immune compromised.^[9]
2. Cathay, The female tiger born on 21 January 2003, is named Cathay in acknowledgement of Cathay Pacific Airways that is sponsoring the transportation of the Chinese tigers till 2008. She has just given birth to a Tiger cub on November 23rd 2007.^[10]
   

   

   Cathay, South China Tigress
3. Tigerwoods, male tiger, born on March 9, 2004. He is the father of Cathay's cub.^[11]
4. Madonna, tigress, born on April 20, 2004.
5. Stud Tiger 327, this stud male-registered as No. 327 in the Studbook Registry of the Zoological Association of China, does not yet have a name. His main role is to replace Hope, as a mate for Cathay. ^[12] He is chosen for the project because he is a healthy looking stud tiger, one of the finer tigers in Suzhou reserve.^[13]

All the South China Tigers that are currently in Africa, except for Stud 327, have successfully regained their hunting abilities and hunted several prey items in the past.^[14]

[edit] Support from experts and scientists

The Save China Tigers' program (SCT) has received advice and support from renowned scientists such as Dr Gary Koehler, the famous American big cat expert. Dr Koehler has had extensive experience in managing big cats in the wild, has been a great supporter of SCT since its inception.

The SCT management team includes a range of experts. The Tiger Rehabilitation program is headed by Gus Van Dyk, a renowned conservationist and carnivore manager with over 15 years of experience at Pilanesberg National Park. Brian Boswell advises on tiger breeding. Petri Viljoen, is a conservation scientist, whose role is to advises on the scientific monitoring for the program. Ground staff includes both South African and Chinese employees.

Along with the tiger re-wilding training, SCT enlisted South African experts to help train Chinese people for future Pilot Reserve to ensure the quality of management. Experts invited to survey the candidate reintroduction sites are also very experienced in this field. The survey on the candidate reintroduction sites for the Chinese tigers was conducted by Dr. Jeremy Anderson, the first director of Pilanesberg National Park who has led many projects on wildlife re-introduction, and Dr. Richard Davis, a top resource economist.

Meanwhile, SCT also takes advices from scientists at home. Chinese experts on field survey including Prof. Hu Defu from Beijing Forestry University and Prof. Deng Xuejian from Hunan Normal University have been supporting SCT. ^[15]

[edit] Objections and obstacles

A big obstacle that the project faced is how to amend the tiger gene. Since the Chinese tigers in captivity have been reproducing within close relatives, the quality of their genes is deteriorating. The project plans to improve living conditions and breed them scientifically. In order to break the bottleneck, they will have to increase the quantity of tigers capable of reproducing healthy cubs.

Another obstacle is that many people lack sufficient understanding of animals, especially of tigers. They believe tigers are nothing but fierce and harmful animals. In fact, wild tigers are afraid of human beings. Unless their territories are invaded or they are preyed upon, they usually avoid conflicts. In India where most tigers still live, there is a famous saying, "Before you actually see a tiger, the tiger has already seen you 100 times." Therefore, there is a need for public education.

The biggest obstacles are from man-made resistance, some organizations in China or from abroad kept raising objections and condemn the strategy used to save the tigers, telling the organization to give up. To SCT, these obstacles make the tiger salvation program even tougher.

The Chinese Tiger Project has received a lot of objections from the beginning. Some say that the Chinese tigers are doomed to become extinct considering their current status. Others say that SCT should donate the money to other projects on tigers. Some conservationist argue not just about how, but whether to save the Chinese tiger.^[16]

Proponents of the Chinese Tiger Project argue that the South China Tiger is not only the most ancient tiger in the world from which all other tiger subspecies are derived, it has been a cultural symbol of China for eight thousand years in recorded history, and so that saving it would have a great cultural as well as economic impact.

[edit] Media coverage of the Save China's Tigers project

Save China's Tigers relies on word-of-mouth for its media exposure, thus saving much needed funds to concentrate on its challenging field projects. To date, the project have been reported by some of the most respected media in the world.

Here are some links of the media coverage:

• Li Quan, Beauty Saves the Beast -Southern Weekly, Aug 21 2003
• Claws for Thought -South China Morning Post, Feb 3 2005
• Chinese Tigers Learn Hunting, Survival Skills in Africa - National Geographic News,March 2, 2005
• Saving Chinese Tigers In South Africa -CBS Evening News, March 27 2007
• Out of zoos and into Africa - Al Jazeera English, May 8th 2007
• Chinese tigers sent to S Africa camp -BBC 6pm news, BBC News 24 and BBC World, June 2 2006
• China tigers burn bright in Africa -Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 2006
• He may be an endangered stud, but cat-walk love leaves him cold - Times (of London), July 14 2007

These are just some of the media coverage of the project, not even half of them. To see more media coverage, please go to http://english.savechinastigers.org/MediaReports

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• List of non-governmental organizations in the People's Republic of China

[edit] External links

• Save China's Tiger homepage, information regarding the rewilding project
• A video of the rare South China tiger hunting, the tigress in this video is Cathay from the Save China's Tiger re-wilding project
• A video of a South China Tiger named Hope tackling a blesbuck
• Keystone Progress of the Save China's tiger project
• Weekly Tiger Diaries, updated information of the South China tigers posted every week