How Many More Years of The Tiger?

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1998 WWF TIGER STATUS REPORT: Year For The Tiger


Tigers in the Wild

(WWF/John MacKinnon)
Hunan or South China tiger






(WWF/Chng Soh Koon)
Confiscated tiger bones and skin






 
By Zhang Yikei and He Xinchu*
The Hunan tiger of South China is on the verge of extinction. Some efforts are being made to preserve this magnificent animal, but more must be done to bring its numbers back up to the level at which the species can survive in the wild.

Beijing, China: Forty years ago there were approximately 4,000 Hunan tigers (Panthera tigris amoyensis) living in the mountains of South China. This year, the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac, experts estimate there to be no more than 25 remaining in the wild. If nothing is done to save it, this magnificent beast may be no more real to future generations than the mythical Chinese dragon.

For millions of years, the domain of the great tiger family covered the Asian continent. But tiger habitats have now shrunk by 95 per cent, and three of the cat's subspecies have already disappeared, according to a recent WWF-World Wildlife Fund For Nature report.

WWF believes that at least 100 individuals of an animal species are required for survival in the wild. Since only a quarter of this number remains of the Hunan, its survival looks doubtful. In the late 1950s, Hunan tigers could be found in remote areas south of the Yangtze River. Today, it is difficult to find anybody who has seen a Hunan.

The tiger's habitat is in China's most densely populated area. As more land is cultivated and more roads are built, this habitat shrinks and most animals are shot, trapped, or dispersed.

The Hunan tiger is renowned for its power and size, with an adult male weighing 175 kilograms and measuring 2.3 metres from nose to tail. It is now ranked with the giant panda as being among the world's ten most endangered species.

Protective legislation for the Hunan did not take effect until 1987, and since then tigers have been at the top of the list of species in need of protection. In 1993 trade in tiger parts was outlawed but, even so, tiger bones are widely sought by hunters as ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine. Consequently, tigers retreat into increasingly remote places.

Isolation makes gene exchange between tigers difficult, and the quality of the species has degenerated as a result of inbreeding. This has been widely recognised by zoologists as a prime reason for the possible extinction of the tigers in the coming century.

But at last efforts are being made to protect some of the remaining Hunan mountain domains. Scientists are also considering connecting isolated reserves to allow tigers to meet mates from elsewhere, thus improving the gene pool.

"We are considering making a fenced-off corridor, tens of kilometres long, between Mangshan and Chebaling mountains, through which tigers could move freely," says Wang Weisheng, a senior official with the Ministry of Forestry. This would be a slow, difficult and expensive solution, but it might just work.

In 1987, five years after Hupingshan Mountain was designated a reserve, two tigers with two  cubs were seen just 100 metres away.

Later, more tiger traces were spotted, and last year about 15 trails made by tigers were identified, more than doubling the number detected during the previous two years.

Reserve director Liao Xiansheng believes that there are about ten South China tigers within the Hupingshan Mountain Reserve. "It's news like this which gives us hope that we can save this most endangered of species," an official from the IUCN-The World Conservation Union said during an inspection tour of the reserve.

In addition to nature reserves, four special nurturing bases have been established to help the animals. The most important of these, Chongqing Zoo, succeeded in breeding 24 tigers in nine births. But while the programme has been successful in quantitative terms, all 48 Hunan tigers in captivity are offspring of the same six tigers, so a limited gene pool has caused qualitative problems.

While it would be foolish to abandon the programme of breeding in captivity, it is clear that it cannot solve the problems facing preservation of the South China tiger in the long term. But inbreeding is not the only obstacle to the future survival of tigers.

Wang is concerned about the loss of the predatory instinct in zoo animals. When the zoologist put a live rabbit in the tigers' cage, they seemed afraid of it and took some time to kill the intruder. Such observations make experts wary of turning a domesticated cat out into the wild.

To help preserve the South China tiger beyond the end of the century, Wang Menghu, of China's National Association of Zoos, would like to see a number of measures taken. These include interbreeding initiatives between wild tigers and those in captivity, better zoo compounds, and the release of zoo-bred tigers into the wild. "By these methods, the number of tigers in captivity could increase to about 150," Wang says.

*Zhang Yikei and He Xinchu are writers with China Features