Naming the little South China tiger Cub

(Beijing, April 2nd 2011) Save China’s Tigers and China’s internet service provider Sina.com is holding a joint naming event for the new born female South China tiger cub, so as the raise awareness for South China Tiger and Wildlife. Chinese Netizens will be able to submit their suggested names or vote for any suggestions online.

This little cub was born at our rewilding facilities at Laohu Valley Reserve in SA on Jan 31 2010, two days before the Chinese Year of the Tigers ended. We have temporarily named the new born by father 327 and mother Cathay - "Miss X".

The birth of Miss X yet once more defied predictions that 327 was incapable of siring offspring. His first baby born in natural environment by his consort Cathay was unfortunately taken away by a bird of prey on its 7th day in Dec 2009. To avoid similar hazard happening again, this precious little South China Tiger was retrieved for hand-rearing in indoor environment in her 3rd day after she had received plenty of Colostrums from her mother.

Miss X is a strong cub and has amazing ability to crawl about. This also accounted for her crawling through the chicken wires of the fence at Laohu Valley Reserve, giving our staff a huge scare! Although her immune system is a bit weak, but she is healthy now with both eyes wide open. She weighs over 5 KG now, her milk teeth are mostly grown, and she has recently started to eat game meat.

Plan is being made to take Miss X back to Laohu Valley in a couple of months and attempt to reunite her with her birth mother, so she can learn to behave and hunt like a tiger. However, given that she is being hand-reared and has complete trust of humans, she can not be reintroduced into the wild as it would pose danger to her life (same is true for Hulooo). She will however contribute valuable genetic materials to her offspring and teach her children hunting skills.

From 21st March, Sina.com will begin to collect names online for a month from all over China. The names will also be voted and final selection will be decided by Save China’s Tigers. The chosen name will be publicized in May, and awards will be given out to winners. The criteria are:

1． Avoiding using repeated character names, such as BeiBei, Lili etc.
2． The name should reflect the cultural and historical position of South China Tiger.
3. The name should not exceed 3 Chinese characters.
4． The English translation should have similar meaning to the Chinese name.

Website for Naming and Voting:
http://news.sina.com.cn/z/tigername2011/index.shtml

This is the second naming event of Save China Tigers since the successful naming event in 2008 for the first born tiger cub ( Hulooo). Huooo is now three and half, ready for breeding.

We encourage all friends of SCT to participate in this event.

For more information about the project or daily progress of the new born cub, please visit our website:www.savechinasitgers.org and SCT twitter @SaveChinaTiger for photos and updates.

You can also participate by filling the form on our English website. http://english.savechinastigers.org/node/612