CHINA/ FILE: China prepares to send endangered South China tiger to bolster rewilding programme in South Africa

China is set to send a fifth South China tiger to South Africa as part of a re-wilding and breeding programme that started in 2003. Less than a hundred of these sub-species of tigers are left in the world today. China's Suzhou (pron: soo-chow) South China Tiger Reserve is set to send a male South China tiger to South Africa for the re-wilding and breeding programme next Monday (April 23). The unnamed tiger, known simply by the number 327 as stated in its breed registry, will be the fifth South China tiger sent to South Africa as part of the ambitious re-wilding programme, which is seen as the last chance to save the species from extinction. The programme was being promoted a few years ago by the charity organisation "Save China's Tigers" to rehabilitate captive tigers and reintroduce them to the wild. Two pairs of male and female tigers have been sent to South Africa's Laohu (pron: lao-hoo) Valley Reserve since September 2003. "Laohu" means tiger in Mandarin. The two pairs, "Hope" and "Cathay" and younger tigers "Tiger Woods" and "Madonna" were the pilots in the groundbreaking experiment - a "re-wilding programme" aimed at encouraging the animals to hunt on their own, breed and impart their hunting skills to their offspring. However, "Hope" died of illness two years ago and as female "Cathay" grows to sexual maturity, zookeepers could not afford to miss an opportunity for the tigers to mate. The younger tiger pair have not reached the age of sexual maturity yet. Thus, a decision was made to send the four-year-old stud "327" to South Africa as a replacement for "Hope". The Suzhou South ChinaTiger Reserve is home to 14 South China tigers and its director David Chen said "327" was chosen because of its age, health and fertility. "I should say he is a healthy tiger who is full of vigour. Also, he is a very fertile stud tiger, one of the finer tigers here," he said. With only about 10 to 30 left in the wild and another 60 in captivity, the Chinese sub-species of the tiger clan is perched precariously on the brink of oblivion. All five tiger sub-species, including the Bengals of India and the huge Siberians of Russia's far east, are highly endangered. Feared as man-eaters but revered as majestic symbols of the wild, there are only a few thousand of the striped cats left in Asia, where they are being squeezed out by habitat loss in the face of swelling human populations. The re-wilding programme has had initial success as the tigers moved from hunting birds to bigger prey like the blesbok, a white-faced African antelope that is similar in size to the deer species the tigers would encounter in the wild in China. However, critics say the problem is that South Africa's fairly open and rocky landscape differs markedly from the natural forested habitat of the tigers in southern China. But Chen said the important thing was that the environment was a conducive one for the tigers to relearn their wildlife survival skills. "There would definitely be a difference from the natural habitat or climatic conditions in South Africa. But this does not conflict with the objective of the re-wilding training programme. Basically, it aims to make the tiger learn its basic natural instincts, such as hunting, living and finding a shelter in the wild again," he said, adding that the natural habitat for the South China tiger is in southern China. "327" will thus be the newest recruit at the Laohu Valley Reserve - a huge 33,000 hectares (81,540 acres) comprised of 17 former sheep farms tucked in a dry and dusty corner of South Africa's Free State province. China is working on building a wild tiger reserve to house the tigers who have gone through the re-wilding programme and hopes to bring them back to the country next year.

ITN Source | April 21, 2007