Out of Africa-Chinese Government Announces Chinese Tigers to Go Home

Global Times* | Huang Jingjing 
Published on August 17, 2014 19:28

A controversial African "rewilding" project, engineered to save the South China wild tiger from certain extinction, may finally be about to bare its teeth. Three tigers, sent to the African wilderness, are finally expected to return home after a decade, along with their 15 surviving offspring.

"As early as the end of this year," Fu Wenyuan, director of the Meihuashan South China Tiger Breeding and Research Center in Longyan, Fujian Province, told the Guangzhou Daily about the tigers' planned timetable.

It was about 10 years ago that China's State Forestry Administration (SFA) agreed to a proposal to raise cubs in South Africa's Laohu ("Tiger") Valley Reserve, where it was hoped that wild tigers could not only be protected but "rewilded" - reared for release back into their natural habitat.

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COMMENT:
I am lost for words reading this article. When I initiated the effort to save the Chinese tigers in 1999, little did I expect the tremendous challenges along the way. I lost complete access to these tigers that I took from China, re-rewilded and bred since August 2012. I so look forward to seeing them again when they return to China. They are like the children I have never had. I pray for their safe return to their homeland, where their ancestors have lived for two million years.

*The Global Times is a Chinese daily in both English and Chinese under the auspices of the Chinese government People's Daily newspaper, focusing on international issues.