fwd: (CN - ZA) South Africa to save rare tigers? - corrected version, sorry - please delete last one!

[Guest guest]

Mail & Guardian Online Thursday June 6th, 2002

by Fiona Macleod

http://www.mg.co.za/l1.jsp

 

The [south African] government is considering an application to rehabilitate

the world's

rarest tigers, the South China tigers, at a remote Free State reserve in an

ambitious attempt to save them from extinction.

 

The plan, hatched by controversial local conservationists the Varty

brothers, is to " train " captive-bred South China tigers to be

self-sufficient so that they can be returned to China and released into the

mountainous, uninhabited areas that are their last stronghold.

 

It is estimated there are between 10 and 30 of these magnificent cats, which

are endemic to China, left in the wild. With the 60-odd others kept in

captivity in zoos, they total fewer than 100 -- making them the most

endangered of the world's five surviving tiger subspecies.

 

As China's " original " tigers, they have a powerful symbolic value in that

country's emerging ecotourism industry. But large-scale hunting,

deforestation, agriculture and pollution have led to a rapid decline in

their numbers since the 1950s.

 

" The Chinese authorities are considering appointing us as the only

rehabilitation centre outside of China for their tigers, " says Dave Varty.

" What South Africa can do is provide them with the technology to take their

tigers back into the wild. "

 

If the South China tigers come to South Africa, they will join two Bengal

tigers that Varty and his brother, filmmaker John Varty, are working with at

their remote desert reserve, called Tiger Moon. Besides their efforts to

rehabilitate the cats, the Vartys are using them to document the plight of

the tiger in the modern world for National Geographic.

 

The brothers brought the two Bengals over from a Canadian zoo in February

2000. A Mail & Guardian report on their plans sparked an international

debate among scientists about whether tigers are related to the

sabre-toothed cats that roamed Africa millions of years ago.

 

Critics question whether there is any conservation value in the Vartys'

tiger project. They say tigers are an alien species in Africa and resources

should rather be concentrated on indigenous animals.

 

The application to bring in the South China tigers, launched last November,

has also sparked controversy among local conservation officials. Because

Tiger Moon straddles the Orange river, falling in both the Free State and

Northern Cape, the application is being processed by the national Department

of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Provincial officials, who normally

hold the jurisdiction to decide on such applications, feel their authority

is being undermined.

 

Permits to hunt exotic big cats, including tigers, in " canned " conditions

are often issued by officials in both provinces. The object of the Vartys'

project is to give the tigers a future as free-ranging icons of ecotourism.

 

Dave Varty says in the two years since he brought over the Bengal cubs, they

have shown that they can catch their own prey and live self-sufficient lives

in the wild. " Our programme with the Bengals has gone better than anybody

expected, " he says.

 

Li Quan, founder of a Britain-based organisation called Save China's Tigers,

is facilitating the new project. She joined a delegation of high-ranking

Chinese government officials last week on a tour of both public and private

South African game reserves.

 

" We hope to learn from South Africa about the strategies adopted to save

other flagship species, such as the white and black rhinos, " says Quan. " We

are trying to promote ecotourism as a development option in China as this

will create a coherent reason for the creation of a wider home range for the

Chinese tiger.

 

" The tiger is an umbrella species. By protecting and preserving it in its

wild habitat, we will care for every plant and creature that shares the

tiger's environment. "