The footage may show that Siberian tigers are rebounding in China, where the subspecies had been hunted nearly to extinction.
National Geographic
Published February 20, 2015
Newly captured video shows a Siberian tiger family playing—the first recorded images of the extremely endangered big cat in inland China.
Fewer than 400 Siberian, or Amur, tigers—one of six
surviving tiger subspecies—remain in their Russian and Chinese habitats,
having dwindled due to extensive hunting over the past century.
Most
of the animals live in Russia, where it's illegal to hunt them, or near
the Russian-Chinese border, but the big cats have struggled to regain a
foothold in China.
Now the most recent footage, shot by the conservation group WWF in northern China's Wangqing Nature Reserve, is proof that Siberian tiger populations are moving farther into China and breeding there, Nilanga Jayasinghe, a program officer with WWF's Wildlife Conservation team, said by email.
"It is a huge success resulting from decades of conservation work to establish a breeding population of tigers in China," Jayasinghe said.
"There is still a lot of work to be done, but efforts to restore habitat; bring back prey species; and increase protection for tiger populations in the Chinese portion of the Amur tiger's range are showing positive results like this family captured on film."
But Dale Miquelle,
director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Russia Program,
cautioned against saying tigers have reestablished themselves in China.
(Learn about National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.)
"Numbers
may be slightly increasing in China, and the evidence of reproducing
females is encouraging, but it is still a tiny population of, at most, a
dozen or so. There is a long way to go before we can say that there is a
viable population living in China," he said by email.
"So this is a nice confirmation and interesting footage, but not really new."
Giving Chinese Tigers a Chance
To
Miquelle, "the last chance to save tigers anywhere in China is probably
the two northernmost provinces of China—Jilin and Heilongjiang. Here
there is connectivity with tigers and tiger habitat in Russia, and
dispersal can and is naturally occurring. So there is a natural source
for recovery of tigers here."
"Recent
camera-trap photos of a tiger on the Russian side of the border with
what looks like snare wounds around the neck suggest snaring ... is
still a problem."
He added that China could help its nascent tiger
population by simply giving it room to grow, protecting the animals
from poachers, and providing enough prey.
"China could make a huge contribution to ensuring a future for wild Siberian tigers."
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