Growing Siberian tiger population poses challenges
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, May 24, 2013
"A tigress bringing her cub around is not common and indicates the species is reproducing properly," Lang said. "It is good news for all those who are engaged in Siberian tiger protection."
HABITAT INTRUSION
Siberian tigers, one of the world's rarest animal species, mainly live in far eastern Russia, northeast China and northern areas of the Korean Peninsula. Less than 500 Siberian tigers currently live in the wild.
The wild Siberian tiger population began to decline after humans began developing the local forestry industry in recent decades. Poachers have also been blamed for the dwindling population.
In 2002, Yang Chunyan, an employee of a local forestry plant, was attacked and killed by a wild tiger.
A subsequent investigation showed that the tiger's neck was wrapped in an iron wire. Ambushed by local hunters and angered by the pain it suffered, the tiger was prone to attack people until its death, said Li Zhixing, secretary of the Hunchun Siberian Tiger Conservation Association.
"After that, people started to rethink the relationship between humans and wild tigers," Li said.
"It is men who have seized the habitat that used to be dominated by tigers," said Zhu Jiang, director of the Northeast Program Office of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Lang said Siberian tigers do not attack livestock by accident.
"We've found that some villagers purposely drive their livestock into the mountains for free grazing. That is an intrusion into the tigers' habitat," he added.
"The best way to protect tigers is to leave them alone," Zhu said.
Zhu said his organization is looking for ways to sustain the rare species. In July 2012, he and his colleagues introduced several deer at the Wangqing Natural Reserve in Jilin. Four months later, the domesticated deer had become wild.
"In the second phase of our experiment, we hope the wild tigers will prey on the deer," Zhu said.
Zhu said multiple dead deer have been discovered in the area, apparently killed by tigers or leopards.
"This indicates that we can sustain the species by increasing the population of their quarry," he said.
Tigers need large habitats in order to live comfortably, Zhu said.
"The way to end human-tiger conflicts is to respect the tigers' habitat and find a way to coexist with them," he said.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)