At the end of October, an international non-governmental association, Save China's Tigers, will sign an agreement with China's Forestry Administration to organize and introduce advanced South African expertise for releasing tigers back into the wild. If the agreement is signed without complications, it will be a significant step forward in the protection of the South China Tiger (panthera tigris amoyesis).

The international Save China's Tigers organization was founded by a Chinese woman Li Quan. Quan always loved kittens when she was growing up in Beijing. After graduating from Peking University, she entered the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States where she completed her MBA. She later settled in London.

In August 2000, Quan invested some US$100,000 and founded the Save China's Tigers charity while in London. She was determined to make every effort to save the South China Tiger. She thought her actions would attract the sympathy and support of the international organizations dedicated to wildlife protection. However, since she began her work, Quan has only received criticism from some of the larger international organizations concerned with animal protection.

In the view of these organizations, the South China Tiger is doomed to extinction, with some scientists expressing their view that it is probably already too late to save the South China Tiger. Even today, most of the world's people don't know that China has native tigers, and that the South China Tiger in particular is thought to be the progenitive ancestor of all the tiger subspecies.

Quan's heart was deeply wounded by this turn of events. Relying on years of relationships built up within British mainstream society, Quan hosted a variety of receptions, held promotional events, and established an Internet website for her organization in order to establish a worldwide endeavor to save the South China Tigers.

Knowing that South Africa has advanced expertise and unique practices for releasing massive wild animals back into their natural habitats, Quan made many trips to South Africa to conduct research. She plans on introducing these advanced methods in China and hopes to achieve a positive outcome by releasing the South China Tiger back into the wild and improving their environmental habitat.

(china.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, October 12, 2002)