Nearly 40 one-year-old tiger cubs from China's largest Siberian tiger breeding base in China's northernmost Heilongjiang Province have been released into the wild in a bid to beef up their ferocity.

It is the first time for the Northeast China Tiger Park to set free such young tiger cubs into an area of approximately 400,000 square meters in the natural environment in all weathers, said Liu Dan, chief engineer of the breeding base, on Saturday.

"We hope the cubs can learn to live by themselves in the natural habitat through the training. After all, the artificial feeding for so long has weakened their preying capability to some extent," said Liu.

The Siberian tiger, the largest of all tigers, is among the world's 10 most endangered species, with less than 400 living at large, mostly in Russia's far east. Fewer than 10 Siberian tigers are now believed to survive in the wild in China's northeast.

Founded in 1986, the base has bred more than 520 Siberian tigers, a vast improvement from the situation some two decades ago when there were only eight.

Liu said the base will have more young tiger cubs to take part in the training and their living area will also be enlarged.

(Xinhua News Agency October 29, 2005)