TigerLi Blog

Cat God at Valley of the Queens

2012-01-09T20:40:00.000Z

Sunset Philae Temple

Nubian kid

Little Crocodile

It was an amazing trip to Luxor/Aswan. All that incredible and mysterious temples, tombs and giant statues..

But the one thing that ate my heart was a little cat at the Valley of the Queens.

He looked like my South African wild cat Sisi, and was strolling across the valley floor, apparently trailing a tomb guard, when I stopped him to stroke him. He rubbed himself against my leg, very content. When I had to leave, I called out to him, "Come, show me around". He looked at me, then looked back at his "master" who was looking at him with a silent command, uncertain who to follow. The cat looked visibly tortured.."Should I follow this mad Chinese woman who showered me with attention? Or should I follow my servant who keeps me company all the time?" After some hard soul searching, In the end he choose to follow his "master".

Sadly I left my camera in the car. The cat's tortured look haunted me for the rest of the day and the thought of having no photo of him tortured me so much that I decided to go back to Valley of the Queens next morning to get a photo, before my flight out of Egypt.

The cat was of course not there. The tomb guards and police were puzzled about my visit but when they understood the purpose of my visit, they tried to search for the cat for me. The name of the guard that the cat was following was Ibrahim. He told me in broken English that the cat was there in the morning and may have gone up the hills to eat something or gone sleeping somewhere. I looked up-vultures were hovering around near the top of those hills..

"Yesterday was cat but no camera. Today was camera but no cat". Ibrahim summarized my predicament with the feline race.

Cat Server Ibrahim Valley of Queens

I had to catch my plight out of Egypt so I appealed to Ibrahim to take a photo of the cat with his phone camera and emailed it to me. He must have taken sympathy for me and readily agreed. I felt imposing on him and offered him a small baksheesh, which is expected and asked for by almost everyone that a foreign tourist encounters. But to my complete surprise, he tried to decline it and I could even detect some embarrassment on his face.

Maybe, the cat chose Ibrahim for a reason..

P.S. Oberoi Towel Art:

TIGER MOTHERS ARE FANTASTIC MOTHERS

2011-12-19T16:14:00.000Z

Ever since Huwaa was reunited with her family she would spend some time with mother and little brothers and some other time with King Henry to continue their bonding. King Henry is a gentle soul in the company of Huwaa, putting up with all her antics continuously, even though he has matured sexually and looking for females through calling and Huwaa is just too young for him.

Meanwhile, Hulooo is even more fascinated now that there are increased activities and excitement with the addition of Huwaa in his neighbouring camp. He spends significant among of time gluing himself to the gate between the two camps which does not please Cathay at all. Having charged through the fence to attack King Henry a few month before, she now decides her grown-up son Hulooo is the threat and picks a daily fight with him through the gate, destroying quite a bit of the metal mesh on her side in the process. Hulooo refuses to give way. Perhaps because he didn't socialize properly as a tiger that he doesn't know that he should do as Henry does -chuffing back at Cathay to appease her? Poor Hulooo- I wonder what goes on in his head? Does he find his little siblings so amusing to watch? Or does he want to relive his childhood? Even at this age he is certainly pretty playful with his brother JenB, stalking and chasing him, and jumping around happily in the open grassland at times. JenB refuses to be drawn into the fight between his mother and brother, wondering what is fuss is all about and looking very puzzled and embarassed by the showdown.

Temporarily named Alpha & Beta, the little brothers emulated sister Huwaa's every step and follows her up the trees if she climbs it and down into the water drainage if she chooses so. No doubt Cathay finds in her a good baby sitter as her boundless energy could keep her little sons entertained to no bound, freeing up her time to pick on Hulooo.

I am continuously amazed at what good mothers the tigers are. Cathay always let her babies eat first even though she was so hungry. Reuniting with Huwaa means that she has to share food with one more mouth but she is as gentle to her daughter now as she was when Huwaa was a little baby. Once just after she started feeding on a leftover carcass, when all her children decided to follow her example and monopolized it. She just let them eat while lying a few meters away. Only when they have their share would she starts eating. When Alpha tries to take it over again, she would warn him off but never does she touch them a finger.

Madonna proves to be even more extraordinary. Being in the camp far more removed from any human activities and shielded from Cathay has given her added sense of security and she hasn't once paced with a cub in her mouth during the two months since she gave birth on Oct 9th, unlike when she was raising King Henry and Princess which worried me sick but from which I also learned a big lesson and therefore put her into this fairly isolated camp. Since we accidentally saw she actually has three cubs, we wanted to catch them and microchip them when they are about two months and still easy. But first we need to understand their movement and find out where she hides them. Madonna wouldn't take the bait! One day she tried to distract us by walking to a completely different direction when she saw us on the watch and she wandered around pretending not to be interested in getting back to her cubs. She won this round.

The next day we shut her into an adjacent camp from early in the morning thinking she may call the cubs out sometime during the day, but we waited in shifts in vain -she didn't make a single call to her cubs. After the sunset I knew she won again so she was let back into her camp. One would have thought that after a whole day being away from her cubs she would rush to them. But NO! Seeing humans still around she took her time, smelling the grass and rolling on the ground as if she was in no hurry. Suddenly roars came from KH causing one of her cubs' reactive cry. Instead of running to her cubs, she ran in the opposite direction into the river! The crying cub emerged, puzzled why mom ran away, but quickly followed her in her foot steps...Clearly even during such emergency situation she did not forget to fool us..

I gave up on sighting them, never mind catching them and microchip them. We informed the vet Joseph not to bother being on standby any more and we will wait a month or two more till they become a bit more independent and can follow Madonna out of the cover.

Yesterday was the day I decided not to bother monitoring Madonna and her cubs. I was just watching Hulooo and JenB when loud cries of cubs came out of Madonna's camp, in response once more to KH's roars. I rushed over into KH"s camp from where I could see into Madonna's camp and there! She and her three mini tigers were again on the river bank on the other side, in the shade of trees. I battled to see them even through the Binos but I could see two cubs suckling for a while before Madonna decided it was time to get up and wandered off. The two suckling cubs were taken by surprise and looked puzzled but quickly followed mom away.

I drove around to another side of the camp and saw Madonna patrolling the fences by herself. How on earth she give instructions to her cubs to stay undercover just puzzles me. I know how tigers invite others to participate in something -by chuffing, but how on earth do they tell them don't follow me out in the open and stay where you are?! I did see the tiger mothers snarl mildly when they get a bit annoyed from their cubs constant energetic play or when their cubs wouldn't let mothers eat at all, so perhaps that's what they do.

I must confess that watching the tiger mothers and how they raise their cubs got to be the most gratifying experience one can have on this planet. I wouldn't exchange it with anything else.

-TigerLi from Laohu Valley Reserve

Dec 15, 2011

327’s Baby Miracle

2011-12-12T15:20:00.002Z

327 enjoying his moment

Well I judged too soon. Over the years there had been all kinds of comments and predictions either on the South China Tigers or on our tiger rewilding project. Comments even by respected professionals included that 327 may have trouble breeding, not just because he got one testes but also because his lower back didn’t develop well (which I could only assume was caused by being in a cage during the early part of his life- he was a big fellow and had no opportunities to run and exercise) so he may have trouble inserting his sperm properly into a female.

We always had just one or two cubs in a litter for the past few years and I almost began to believe that some of these comments may have some truth in that, though I kept hoping they were proven wrong. Last week when we sighted Madonna’s two babies, I took it for granted that she had just two cubs, yet for another time. It was a bit disappointing but hey, we got two more babies, and offspring of 327 who unfortunately passed away in September.

It was the two-Months’ birthday of Madonna’s babies today. I was checking if Huwaa had eaten her first kill during today’s afternoon monitoring session. Having no luck in finding where she had hidden her kill (Bless her!), I decided to drive down to the same spot where I saw Madonna’s two cubs last week. Huwaa followed our vehicle over and encountered Madonna pacing along the fence on the other side. She seemed much more relaxed now seeing Huwaa, unlike a few months ago when she treated Huwaa with hatred. She even replied to Huwaa’s signature chuffs a couple of times. While I was wondering if Madonna’s cubs were in the same spot in the dense thicket inside the river when I noticed that Huwaa’s attention was entirely drawn by something down there. The cubs must have been there! Huwaa tried to find ways to get closer to the fence for better look or to get over to the other side of the fence but there was no way due to the electric wires. She had to resign herself to sitting next to the fence and watch. It was truly amazing that Huwaa could see something , since I could not detect the slightest moving of any grass or tree branches through my binos.

After some pacing Madonna went back towards the river, albeit hesitant- I was sure she didn’t want to reveal the positions of her babies but she couldn’t do much about either our vehicle or Huwaa who betrayed the locations of her babies. I was wondering if Huwaa’s infectious chuff would flush out the cubs when out of the river thicket, there emerged a tiny tiger head. Madonna went over to the cub, chuffing gently and licking its head.. “looks like a boy”, Vivienne said, “the head is kinda broad”. My heart sank and I didn’t want to believe her. I quickly took out my video camera and started recording this rare sight. The fence was in between but I was hopeful we might be able to see the gender of the cub through the magnifying function.

I played the video back there and then, magnifying the image several fold. “Looks like a girl, “ now Vivienne said. “Are you sure?” I asked and so hoped it to be true. I played the video back a few more times and it was clear that we were looking at a girl. I was elated..

While we were celebrating this fact, Madonna headed back deep into the river thicket, followed by her wobbling little cub. It was hard to see through the thicket but I could hear her chuffing, perhaps making connections to her other cub who had been calling her in a quiet call.

Then loud sounds ensured as if someone was crunching on bones. Perhaps she started feeding? While I was looking at the video image of her baby daughter for the umpteenth time in pride and happiness, Madonna led her babies out into the open on the other side of the river bank. “She has three,” Vivienne said in astonishment. “What?!” I snatched my binos back from her and started looking through in great excitement, “Three??! !”. But I could only see two cubs. “Perhaps I was imagining things?” Vivienne said in her usual humorous but even toned voice. I passed my binos back to her to double check, disappointed but taking it for granted. “It is three,” Vivienne confirmed, “I thought I was imagining things”. I looked once more into my binos and couldn’t be any happier as I saw three cute tiny stripy cubs frolicking in the grass and around mommy Madonna!

I published my last blog too soon.

And, 327, you left a great legacy!

Madonna’s Baby Mystery

2011-12-06T14:30:00.000Z

Over a month passed since Madonna’s supposed delivery of cubs on Oct 9^th and we still had no idea of how many cubs she gave birth to and what gender they were. One thing we were certain was that she gave birth. I was asked by countless people as to why I was certain. Yes, I am certain, I'd say. Because I have experienced seven previous births and this is the eighth and by now I am pretty certain of their behaviour. However, at the back of my mind, I worried!

What if a predatory bird or reptile has also taken a cub or two? This happened to 327’s first cub born by Cathay. These new cubs were also born in complete nature and have been growing up in a huge area with a little stream going through it lined with dense trees, far removed from human access. I was too worried that the cubs, if cornered in our effort to count them, may dash into the river and drown. We have neither heard a cry nor witnessed a shadow of these new-borns, also sired by 327 and they carry with them precious genetic materials left by their dad who got killed in September. I was worried sick: what if the cubs accidently fell into the river and drowned? We couldn’t possibly know as they are completely in the hands of nature. But I also had complete faith in Madonna. I knew she was looking after them. I could tell from her continuous mysterious ways of emerging and disappearing back into the dense covers.

We were monitoring Huwaa and King Henry this afternoon. He has been so gentle and kind with little Huwaa, putting up with her antics and answering her constant and energetic tease with such grace, even though he knows she is too young to be his girlfriend. But when it comes to food, he was not so generous and even steal hers when he still has his. Otherwise he has been a good mentor. Having been fed with a warthog this morning, I was wondering where KH was hiding himself and his prize, and if he had shared any with Huwaa when I heard his loud roars coming from the other side of the stream which also flows through the neighbouring camp that Madonna currently resides.

I was asking myself why he roared, and decided that it must be him calling for females to mate as he had also demonstrated sextual maturity a few months ago when he was seen mounting his sister Princess when suddenly loud cries of baby tigers came from Madonna’s camp! Looking across the fence, I saw, in a little open area on the river bank, one tiny little tiger crying his heart out! Although the cries sounded as if they were caused by two sources, I could however only find one cub through my binoculars. But there got to be another as the mouth of this one in my viewfinder was not open when the cry still continued. Failing to find mom Madonna, this cub decided to return to the dense vegetation in the stream and I followed it through my viewfinder. Soon my eyes encountered a second cub behind the tree branches. TWO CUBS INDEED! So we were right not only about the birth of these cubs but also their number!

The cubs must have thought it was Mom Madonna roaring so they came out from their hideout to answer her calls...

Seeing them healthy, round and mobile though still a bit wobbly truly made my day! ! The next challenge would be to find out their gender..We would have to do that when we microchip them, as is required by law...

Nov 30^th 2011

First Time Mating by Second Generation Rewilded South China Tigers

2011-12-02T12:31:00.001Z

A few months ago, we put Princess with Hulooo brothers, when signs ofsextual maturity of her and her brother King Henry were observed. She was first put in with Hulooo but there seemed to be no love lost between them. Then I decided to put JenB & Coco in with her all at the same time to see if competition among the brothers may motivate some changes in her and/or Hulooo brothers behaviours. Soon, I did notice her timidly trying to get close to the incredibly bonded brothers, which was an encouraging sign.

Then the party was broken from time to time, as she had to be moved out a couple of times due to her food getting stolen by the gang of brothers, and later the JenB & Coco had to move back to 100 ha hunting camp, etc after the snow-damaged fences were repaired. Most recently, she was found alone with Hulooo. This morning, I saw her sneaking up to Hulooo rubbing her head against him, which was promptly shouldered off by Hulooo. Not taking the cue, she went anyway in front of him lying down crouching in the position that normally indicates an invitation of mating. I was excited to see that. Wow...Is she coming into Oestrus? She could be as she is now a bit over 3 years old. Her mother Madonna and Aunt Cathay however all sprayed profusely before they began their breeding career but Princess had not been observed to demonstrate such behaviour. Perhaps I was being too optimistic? Tiger keeper Vivienne confirmed that she also hadn’t noticed any spraying either. Perhaps then I read into it too much? Perhaps neither she nor Hulooo are actually mature?

However, in the afternoon monitoring session, just while my and my visitors’ attention were focused on the lovely Cathay family, I suddenly saw, in the distance, Hulooo mounting Princess! I couldn’t believe my eyes and certainly couldn’t contain my excitement! Is this for real??? But all looked real: The roar that followed after mating, and the attempted slapping of Hulooo by Princess...

A second mating followed only two minutes later, confirming everything we saw. Within 30 minutes, we witnessed them mating five times. The usual shy Princess changed from a timid cat to a bold pursuer of love and traced Hulooo wherever he went. At one point, Hulooo’s attention was completely taken up by Cathay’s babies next door that he wouldn’t respond to Princess’ invitation, or perhaps they had been at it for the whole day that he felt like a rest? But that didn’t stop her.

So this is happening! This is for real! I had underestimated Hulooo and had thought that being a hand-reared tiger he was too bonded to humans to take an interest in the finer sex. But I was wrong. Hulooo certainly demonstrated that he is a NATURAL at this! However, unlike his mom and dad who had a romantic courtship due to their intimate relationship prior to maturity, Hulooo and Princess’ mating was strictly business. And at times, Hulooo appeared to be almost reluctant..

I feel overwhelmed. And So proud...The second generation of rewilded South China Tigers in South Africa have now embarked their journey to procreate and maybe soon we will have third generation South China Tigers in SA? Fingers crossed. However, now that my one worry about their ability to mate is gone, the next one about their level of fertility has crept into my conscious....

Nov 27, 2011

Huwaa Meet Little Brothers in Person

2011-11-29T16:21:00.002Z

In no time, Huwaa has grown into a little beauty of nearly 10 months of age, while her little brothers completed four months in this world. Temporarily named Alpha and Beta, the pair caused considerable amount of mischief to mom Cathay. Being the more daring of the two, Alpha often leads in such joyful jumps over either Mom or his sibling Beta, much to the visible annoyance of both.

But even their combined energy cant not compete with that of Huwaa. For the past few months King Henry has indulged her whims with good manners and huge amount of patience and has gone as far as playing happily with her. Our experiment of putting a tiger cub with an unrelated adult male has proven to be a another complete success, yet again much contrary to the traditional zoo wisdom. But perhaps King Henry enjoyed the company of Huwaa because he had been used to the company of his sister Princess until fairly recently? But TigerWoods has also shown tolerance of Huwaa’s presence, putting up with her if necessary, albeit preferring his own solitary state of sleeping and eating. The only one who was nasty to Huwaa was Madonna, but we forgive her. After all, she was pregnant with her own babies at that time and had no intention of adopting her love rival’s daughter!

Perhaps the novelty value of Huwaa is wearing down, since King Henry doesn’t respond to Huwaa’s antics as much as before. Still my goal has been achieved: Huwaa and KH have formed a good bond which would make their potential future breeding easier; and KH would also be able to show Huwaa a trick or two hunting techniques.

Another hunting coach is of course Huwaa’s mom Cathay. Over the past four months, we continued to let Huwaa interact with Cathay from time to time even though she has been rearing her newborns. It was clear that if Huwaa had a choice, she would have torn through the fence and making her little brothers her toys. In her eyes, her little brothers are so cute and playable. That was also the reason why her presence was banned from them for fear of her endangering their safety.

Now the little boys are mobile and sturdy, and at the same age as JenB and Coco when they were united with their big brother Hulooo, we let Huwaa meet them in person.

Huwaa was overjoyed, running towards them asa she was let in their Grass camp. The little boys were also pleasantly surprised, as they had been looking up to their little big sis for as long as they could remember. Cathay, having found a good baby sitter in her daughter, promptly left the three of them and went patrolling the fence, throwing a few deafening roars at Hulooo to warn him off her young ones. Poor Hulooo -all he probably wanted was to join in and be a child again. He bore no malice towards the little half-siblings. But mom Cathay doesn’t think so!

For the next hour or so, it was just the most wonderful scene one can ever witness, watching three little tigers chasing one another & ambushing one another with boundless energy and great gusto. Alpha proves yet once more that he will be the leader of the two, probably for a while, as he occasionally unleased sounds the loudness of which doesn’t seem to fit such a little body. He even followed Huwaa into adjacent camp to “terrorize” her, when it was time to let her retire for the night with KH. Mom Cathay returned from her showdown with Hulooo after sunset, thanked Huwaa with warm chuffs for looking after her brothers, and dragged reluctant Beta away from the fence to settle into the darkness of the night.

Another successful experiment that is going to do a lot of good for Huwaa and her family...

Rewilding the South China Tiger

2011-11-03T15:45:00.001Z

Dr. Jim Sanderson¹, Petri Viljoen², Dr. Gary Koehler³, Dr. Nobuyuki Yamaguchi⁴, Dr. Laurie Marker⁵, Dr. Peter Crawshaw⁶, Dr. James L. David Smith⁷, Christine Pienaar⁸, Lu Jun⁹, Li Quan², Stuart Bray²

¹Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation
²Save China’s Tigers
³2218 Stephanie Brooke, Wenatchee, WA 98801 USA,
⁴Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Qatar University
⁵Cheetah Conservation Fund
⁶Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservacão de Mamiferos Carnivoros, Cenap/ICMBIO,
⁷Dept. Fisheries, Wildlife & Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota,
⁸Department of Environment & Nature Conservation, Northern Cape Province, South Africa
⁹National Wildlife Research and Development Center, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, China,

Rewilding the South China Tiger (1154 words)

Abstract

The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) was the victim of government-sponsored wildlife extermination teams operating from 1952 to 1970s. If the South China tiger exists at all in the wild, it is extremely rare. Captive facilities contained 100 individuals approximately at present. Save China’s Tigers, a not-for profit charity, was created to re-introduce the South China tiger in southern China. We provide background, an update, and future plans for the re-establishment of the South China tiger into its natural habitat.

Background

The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is the rarest of five extant tiger subspecies and is at best extremely rare and might well be extinct in the wild. Between 1952 and the mid 1970s government-sponsored wildlife elimination teams removed wildlife, including tigers, from China. A recent plan to reverse the decline of tigers globally does not include protecting the South China tiger and its habitat (Walston et al. 2010). Captive facilities in China house approximately 100 at present individuals and the rewilding center in South Africa has 13 individuals. The State Forestry Administration of China has endorsed re-establishing the South China tiger into several protected areas in the tiger’s former geographic area.

Save China’s Tigers, with offices registered in the UK, USA, Hong Kong, Australia and China was created in 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2011 respectively with the goal of re-establishing a genetically viable population of free-ranging South China tigers in restored native habitat through a program of captive breeding, rewilding, restoring the ecosystem and prey base, and releasing tigers in China, henceforth called the Chinese Tiger Reintroduction Project.

In 2002 Save China’s Tigers acquired the use of 17 sheep farms totaling approximately 33,000 ha near Philippolis, Free State/Northern Cape Provinces, South Africa. Over several years Laohu Valley was created by removing livestock and fences, and installing solar powered predator-proof fencing. In 2002 Save China’s Tigers and the National Wildlife Research and Development Center of the State Forestry Administration of China entered into a joint venture to implement this project. Laohu Valley Reserve is owned by the joint venture and operated for the benefit of the project and so not open to the public and is not a tourist destination. Unlike another tiger tourist facility adjacent to Laohu Valley, tourists are not permitted entry and no income is derived from “tiger viewing” at Laohu Valley.

Beginning in 2003, with China’s help, the project acquired two studbook registered South China tiger cubs, a male and female aged 7 and 8 months, respectively. These tigers were transferred to an enclosure at Mokopane Game Breeding Centre of the South African National Zoological Gardens while preparations were completed at Laohu Valley. These cubs, familiar only with concrete box display cages, were initially reluctant to leave the concrete pad adjacent to the gate of their otherwise natural enclosure.

Rewilding Process

We use the term rewilding to refer to a soft release process by which captive-born tigers gradually learn to survive on their own in a large natural enclosure and then they are eventually returned to a more natural environment. Rewilding is vital as the following examples show. When they first arrived in South Africa, the two cubs did not recognize a chicken carcass as food and they had to be fed chopped meat. Later, when they were presented with a live chicken, they approached it with curiosity. The cubs also had to become familiar with a natural environment. The first time their paws touched grass, they shook them as if they had stepped onto a foreign substance.

Between September, 2003 and December, 2009 four out of five South China tigers moved from China to Laohu Valley Reserves (LVR) survived. At LVR these tigers produced thirteen cubs of which ten cubs survived. The rewilding protocol, designed by Gus van Dyk, requires moving tigers among 40 and 100 ha enclosures for breeding and rewilding. Blesbuck (Damaliscus dorcas) was chosen as prey because it is easily managed within fences, readily available from local game farms, and is comparable in size to some native prey in China. South Africa was the ideal venue for this effort because large blocks of land and a variety of prey species are available, wildlife management practices are well understood and permitted by provincial and federal government, and wildlife managers are familiar with predator and prey management.

Ten or more blesbuck are released into electrified 40-100 ha enclosures and allowed time to become accustomed to the terrain before 1-3 tigers are released into the enclosure. Hunting success and failure are monitored daily. According to the rewilding protocol, if a tiger fails to hunt successfully within six days it will be given food so as to maintain its condition. A tiger’s hunting success is invariably poor immediately following its initial release in stocked enclosure. Though tigers are able to secure various small prey items such as guinea fowl, they required several months to a year to become effective hunters.

Our experience clearly demonstrates that captive-born tigers generally do not initially recognize potential prey, and that hunting is a learned behavior. Though the ability to hunt is innate, the skill necessary to hunt successfully takes many months to learn. These facts show that a soft release is vital to the rewilding process. To release captive-born inexperienced sub-adult or adult tigers to a wild area, even one with abundant prey, would be both cavalier and irresponsible.

Rewilding in China

Using captive large felid populations to restore wild populations, as presented by Hunter (1996) and Christie & Seidensticker (1999) and experiences from LVR, offer a strategy for re-establishing South China tigers in China. Reintroduction in China will follow the IUCN guidelines (ref – IUCN webpage) for species reintroductions and lessons learned from other reintroduction programs, both successful and failed.

South African wildlife management experience suggests that large fenced enclosures are needed. These areas must contain sufficient free ranging wild prey so that animals can learn to hunt on their own. The project is in an early phase, but all second generation tigers (except those born recently) have also passed the first stage of rewilding. They now hunt on their own. The next stage is to prepare reintroduction sites in China and to build up natural prey at these sites.

Acknowledgements

We thank the State Forestry Administration of China, the Free State Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, the Department of Environment & Nature Conservation, Northern Cape Province, South Africa, and Mr. Gus van Dyk.

References

Du Toit, J. and C. Marais. 2010. South African Country Life. Tigers of the Free State. Pages 30-33.

Hunter, L. 1996. Secondary Reintroductions of Large Cats in Africa, Cat News 14.

Christie, S. and J. Seidensticker. 1999. Riding the Tiger, [complete reference]

Walston, J. J.G. Robinson, E. L. Bennett, U. Breitenmoser, G. A. B. da Fonseca, J. Goodrich, M. Gumal, L. Hunter, A. Johnson, K. U. Karanth, N. Leader-Williams, K. MacKinnon, D. Miquelle, A. Pattanavibool, C. Poole, A. Rabinowitz, J. L. D. Smith, E. J. Stokes, S. N. Stuart, C. Vongkhamheng, and H. Wibisono. 2010. Bringing the tiger back from the brink – The six percent solution. PLoS Biology 8(9): e1000485doi:10. 1371/journal.pbio.1000485.

Pioneering Tiger Dies in South African Reserve

2011-09-26T17:43:00.000+01:00

Sept 26, Laohu Valley Reserve, Free State, South Africa

Save China’s Tigers is deeply saddened to announce the death of a South China Tiger under its care in the evening of September 17.

An adult male tiger broke through a gate of adjoining tiger camps to attack another adult male but was subsequently killed by the second male.

Both tigers were part of a decade-long conservation project to rewild and breed critically endangered South China tigers before returning them to protected nature reserves in China.

While feeding some tigers, staff heard loud roaring and growls from another tiger camp. Rushing to inspect, staff found one large male tiger had another male pinned down to the ground and was holding him by the throat. They immediately started shouting and blowing vehicle horns to no avail. They then entered the camp in a truck and drove off the other tiger, separating him into another camp.

The pinned tiger, named ‘327’ was found dead and closer inspection noted throat injuries. The entire skirmish lasted only about five minutes. An assessment of the circumstances reveals that 327 had charged right through electrified gate separating the tigers to attack the other male. Subsequent testing of fencing voltages revealed the fencing was still operating at recommended performance, however, the tiger had broken through the gate area which does not have the added electrified tripwire security. All gates on the reserve had been upgraded with added steel mesh protection after a similar fence-breaking incidence a couple of months earlier, but this was one of the four remaining gates that had not yet been upgraded.

Inspection of the second male showed no obvious injuries except a few scratches. 327 was the only first generation tiger at Laohu who was not put into our rewilding program due to his age when he came to South Africa. It is evident that he was no match for the second male who has gone through rewilding training for six years and acquired superb hunting skills, and who killed 327 easily despite being smaller than him .

An autopsy has been performed by an experienced veterinarian who confirmed 327’s cause of death.

Born in captivity, 327 was four and a half years old when he was flown from China’s Suzhou Zoo in April 2007 as part of the Save China’s Tigers project’s innovative rewilding and breeding program in collaboration with the Chinese government. 327 was named after his stud-book registration number. Hand-reared by human parents, he was extremely habituated to humans. Declining to mate with the two tigresses, he was banished to a natural environment for about a year feeding entirely on natural prey. He thrived and ended up fathering three litters of four healthy cubs (and potentially more to come by another female in October).

Save China’s Tigers Founding Director, Ms. Li Quan said that she and her team are devastated by the loss of the tiger – “With so few South China tigers left, the loss of just one breeding male is profound. I am however glad that he lived half of his life like a wild tiger, instead of perishing in a zoo cage. He died a heroic death, tiger-style.”

Reserve Manager Hein Funck said: “Although I only knew him for a short time, he made a big impression. I’ll miss his cheeky strut and his loving rumble.”

Tigers have complex behaviors and while adult siblings often share a prey in the wild, males will have to fight for territory in order to survive and to mate with females. Laohu Valley Reserve is currently home to eleven tigers where they have been undergoing rewild training and participating in a breeding program that counts 8 healthy second generation tigers born in SA – three of them sired by 327. The IUCN Red Listed South China tiger as critically endangered due to pest elimination campaign in the 60’s and seventies as well as habitat encroachment and loss of prey due to development.

“Despite our best efforts, we were unable to prevent this unfortunate loss. We have learned another lesson - we are now dealing with rewilded and highly intelligent big cats that can hunt and kill efficiently. We will need to improve our safety standards and protocols accordingly. As one scientist noted, in a perverse way this accident shows that the rewilding project has proven to be a success. 327 was a majestic tiger and will be missed by all of us who are fond of him. In spite of these sometimes heart-breaking challenges, we at Save China’s Tigers remain committed to our work of saving the South China tiger from extinction and restoring its ecosystem for generations to come.” said Ms. Quan.

Memorial donations are accepted in honor of 327 at: http://english.savechinastigers.org/donatenow

Or email: info@savechinastigers.org

Detailed report will be available upon request.

Not Everyone Likes Huwaa

2011-09-02T15:02:00.000+01:00

The little baby tigers showed their little faces sparingly during the last few days when the Chinese reporters came to visit, while Cathay continued to patrol around her camp, warning all the nosy boys off her and her babies butt. After all the strangers had left, mom chuffed her babies out of the donga to have a good straddle around. The little boys wobbled onto a patch of dry grass in succession and it was clear they were starting to play, though they were still so unsteady. They waved their fat little arms as if pounding the other one and climbed on top of one another. Their achievement today was climbing a thick branch of a big tree about half meter off the ground. The first one managed pretty quickly but the second cub pondered over it for quite some time before making the attempt. He succeeded only half way, getting off the branch the way he climbed up, while the first cub disappeared from the other side.

Seeing that Madonna’s hind legs had been loosing condition and needed some exercise, I decided to also let Madonna to go into the hunting camp with TigerWoods and Huwaa on Sept 27th, if her test meeting with Huwaa was not too dramatic. She may be pregnant, and if so she might not be able to have any hunting exercise for yet some more months to come if she gives birth mid-September. It would anyway be good to have two hunting teachers. Madonna didn’t show much emotion towards Huwaa when eventually all three were let into the mini camp just before going into the Tigers' Roars, so the gate was opened to let them move into it.

TigerWoods was the first to go in and having been absent for several years from it, he explored and sniffed. Huwaa followed him in, playing with his tail which annoyed the hell of him. However, all the male tigers had been very patient with her, allowing her rather energetic taps on their butts, however irritating that is, but running away sometimes. Huwaa was distracted by the humans watching her, letting step dad getting away steadily, disappearing into the trees. Afraid that she may have no one to follow in a huge new camp, I got all humans into vehicles, thus damping all of Huwaa’s hope of playing with them. Madonna uttered a little unpleasant sound after she entered the Tiger's Roar and when Huwaa tried also patting her butt. She didn’t make a huge fuss, allowing her trailing behind by a few meters, when the two also disappeared into the trees.

When we checked on Huwaa yesterday morning in her new home, she only came out when the predator whistle was sounded. She was not in a hurry thought she was very happy to see all the human visitors. Perhaps she was allowed to share some of the two blesbok kills TigerWoods and Madonna made over night? We couldn’t be sure but she didn’t seem to be hungry-just showed off her acrobatic skills. In the afternoon, she answered her rote call from across the little river, jumping and diving across the river and into the grasses. There was still no begging for food. It made me wonder if she was feeding off TW or Madonna’s kills?

This morning, I wanted to check if she was actually spending the past two nights on her own or with an adult tiger so we rote called with predator whistle. Only Madonna came, while TW was still nowhere to be seen. Madonna however was not that friendly to Huwaa, snarling at her. But no fight seemed to have broken. It was clear that Madonna was not Cathay and did not treat Huwaa with the same care and patience.

It was not until this afternoon when I realized how much grudges Madonna bore towards Huwaa. As usual, Huwaa answered my rote call and came to where I was standing by the gate. But from the corner of her eyes she saw Madonna in the distance by the little river and froze. When Madonna started making her way over towards us, Huwaa suddenly turned and run like a fugitive towards the opposite direction along the fence and up the hill, tail between her legs and checking her back to see if Madonna might be close. My calling after her was not enough to stop her. I realized there must have been something wrong and only managed to catch up with the little girl and slowly coached her back to the gate by assuring her that I was there to protect her, hoping to get her out of the Tigers' Roars. However, Madonna had arrived. She uttered a menacing snarl and charged towards Huwaa. Poor little Huwaa at least knew how to run and to avoid Madonna’s aggression. There were a few near misses as Huwaa tried to reach the gate which I was waiting to open for her, but which Madonna decided to guard against and chased Huwaa around. Only the approaching sound of Vivienne’s vehicle distracted Madonna a little so I was able to get Huwaa out of the Tigers' Roars camp and into the mini camp. She was grateful to be over the ordeal and rubbed her head gently against my leg and followed me through Catkins Camp into quarantine and then into the corner camp where Cathay was waiting for her.

Mom is mom. Huwaa needed the consolation. Unlike the snarls and hisses that Huwaa received from Madonna, she was showered with from mom before they were even let into the same camp with Cathay. Huwaa unleashed all her pent-up feelings onto her mother and jumped about Cathay energetically. Despite her hunger Cathay bore patiently Huwaa’s antics, allowing her to abuse her good self. Even when she was fed up with all the pounding on her butt and her face and wanted to talk Huwaa down, she was gentle -careful not to hurt her. The difference between Cathay and Madonna’s attitudes towards Huwaa couldn’t be more clear-tiger mothers recognize their own offsprings! There was no doubt that Madonna knew Huwas was Cathay’s baby and was nasty to her. Jealousy? I have no doubt.

Meanwhile, Huwaa’s hunting training has to wait for a few weeks, till Madonna and TW have finished hunting in the Tigers' Roars…

Aug 28th, 2011
TigerLi in Laohu Valley

Into Nature They Moved

2011-09-02T14:46:00.000+01:00

The gates that lead to Ripples were opened yesterday afternoon. Excited Cathay even ignored the whole blesbok carcass and went deep into the trees and grasses, sniffing and spraying, enjoying the sweet air of nature. The next morning I first saw Cathay mock-charging her boys –Hulooo brothers who were in the camp next door, warning them not to come close to her little treasures of baby boys. All her grown-up sons were excited by the presence of their mother and huddled by the fence to have a peep into the trees, grasses and bushes for any sight of their little brothers. But the little brothers’ cries could only be heard coming from somewhere in the camp.. I only managed to see one later in the morning -they settled well in their new home. I couldn’t help but smiling at myself when I recalled the comic scenes of the day before trying to weigh the cubs before Cathay came back to move them. The cub crouched firmly on all fours and I could not lift him by his neck so I had to hold his two chubby arms. But once we got his weight-a whooping six kilo for a little fur ball like that, he refused to get off the scale, holding onto it like a turtle! At least I didn’t get any clawing from him as from Huwaa the other day while trying to remove the ticks from her fur.

Meanwhile, it is also time for Huwaa to learn a trick or two about hunting. She is nearly seven months old and it is important for her to start going on hunting trips with mom, as in the wild. But mom is busy rearing Huwaa’s little brothers who are way too small for any hunting training. Fortunately, everyone at Laohu seemed to love Huwaa- her big cousin King Henry, and her step dad TigerWoods, whom I introduced her to two days ago. Considering that TigerWoods has not had any opportunity to hunt for a few years, I wanted him to get some exercise, so plans were made for TigerWoods to be Huwaa’s hunting teacher in the beginning.

Thankfully, repairs of the fences of the 40 ha Tigers’ Roars hunting camp was finished today (and fingers crossed that no more snow storm will come this way for some time to come). We needed to procure some prey for TW and Huwaa immediately so they can start their program soon enough, in time for JenB and Coco to return to 100 ha Hunter's Palace camp to resume their GPS monitored hunting activities, which were unfortunately interrupted by the snow storm and the damaged fences. Unless the prey in Tigers’ Roars is completed removed, there will be no way we can move JenB brothers across to the Hunter's Palace on the other side of Tigers’ Roars camp. Also we cant have any activities/disturbances in the Tigers’ Roars camp in order to have good scientific data for JenB brothers’ GPS monitoring data.

Our ever resourceful Reserve Manager Hein managed to find a very quick solution. A small game capture team of two men showed up this afternoon. Game capture is a very specialized aspect of wildlife conservation in which South Africa not only invented but excelled. They can catch game as big as the elephant and as fast as the sprinbok. In fact without these skills, SA would not be able to boast their leading status in wildlife management. As we only need a small number of blesbok for the hunting camp for now, a different technique from the one normally used was applied today. As the chopper flies over the game, a net would drop on one or two animals which are caught alive. The operation went smoothly in quick rythm and I couldn’t help but admiring the lifestyle of the capture team.. It felt more like a sport than making a living. I couldn’t help but think if I were reincarnated as a man in South Africa, this could be one of the careers I’d be found in. But nothing will ever run completely smoothly in my life. On our way out of the velt when the capture was finished, we got stuck in the mud. It is hard to imagine how ridiculous this is unless one is from as dry a region as the Karoo. Some of the land at Laohu Valley is still soaked in water from the flood we suffered in January and continuous rains till March. This looked like a mini Okavango Delta in the making!

We had to be rescued by our tractor in the end but the blesbok arrived in the hunting camp safe and relieved. It will be a very interesting week coming, as I look forward to watching Cathay with her little babies in the natural environment, and Huwaa trailing uncle TigerWoods in his hunt...

Aug 26th 2011
TigerLi in Laohu Valley

Huwaa Meet Her Baby Brothers

2011-08-23T10:03:00.010+01:00

A cold front came in last night, but Cathay and her babies stayed outside the breeding centre, which we allowed for the first time. This morning I saw the babies well sheltered from the hauling wind between the tree trunk and the wooden shed, huddled around each other.

Huwaa, who had been waken up by our morning call, was trying her best to get us pay attention to her. The baby tigers saw that and walked wobbly out of their hidden spot towards her but stopped midway. Seeing that, Cathay went over and gently lifted each one up in her well-controlled mouth and moved the babies close to the fence where Huwaa was getting excited on the other side of the fence. She was so thrilled to see her baby brothers for the first time and she tried to reach out to them through the fence to play with them. Fortunately the metal mesh stopped her paws from getting through, as being still a child herself, she would have no idea how fragile her baby brothers are and how they could simply be played to death by her.

Cathay retreated into the wooden shelter and simply kept a watchful eye, secure in the knowledge that her little daughter could not accidentally hurt her babies due to the fence between them even though Huwaa has no idea how deadly her paws and teeth could actually be. The little cubs seemed to know the creature on the other side was their elder sister and tried to reach out to her. They stood up on their not-yet-so strong little legs in that attempt to get closer to Huwaa. Thus they played and played..

Cathay certainly couldn’t have found a better baby sitter than Huwaa who kept her increasingly feisty cubs entertained. I feel greatly relieved as well, as I have plans to put Huwaa back with both her mom and her baby brothers together a few months down the road so they can all learn hunting from mom Cathay at the same time.

After a while, Cathay decided that they had enough excitement and proceeded to gently gently carry the first baby back to the hiding spot. Except that the little cub wanted more of his elder sister and walked wobbly back to Huwaa while Cathay was carrying the second cub back to their shielded spot. But on hearing the cry of his little twin brother, the wandering cub went back into the comfort of his mom’s care and his brother’s embrace, where they dreamed their day dreams through the cold windy grey day...

The reason that Cathay and her two cubs were kept in the breeding center/quarantine camp during the first month of their births was to shield them from potential predators that could take their lives, as happened to another of Cathay’s cubs in Dec 2009. Now that they can walk, a bit wobbly albeit pretty speedy, I decided to let them move into Ripples camp where they can grow up in a natural environment.

Bond Between Humans and Animals

2011-08-01T15:32:00.001+01:00

I had always wanted to be have contact with animals. I had cats at home of course. But I always wanted to have an intimate relationship with big cats, particularly the tiger. It is that longing that set me on the path to save the South China Tigers.

I am not alone. I guess it is only human.. Our ancestors worshiped the tiger, the lion, resulting in arts and religious symbols.

I remember vividly the first time I was in close contact with a tiger -I was in heaven. I felt I wanted to help them with all I have -they are so magnificent yet so vulnerable. I believed that if my fellow country men had such opportunities as I did, they would want to help tigers and wildlife as I do. It has changed my life and it can change the life of others in whatever small ways too.

I have been to a number of facilities around the world where you can have such experience, but none as unique as that of T.I. G.E.R.S founded by Doc Antle. http://www.tigerfriends.com

The animals are not only well treated, enriched but also given opportunities to showcase their prowess, thus providing the tour participants with the opportunity to understand what they could be doing and how they could be hunting in the wild. Quite a percentage of their profits goes to fund grassroots conservation projects that badly need funding: http://www.rarespeciesfund.org/

I hope one day such an opportunity can be brought to China so my fellow countrymen can have similar opportunities as others in the US and can be motivated to help their wild brothers and sisters.

With Wolves

With Bobcat

Liger

Feeding tiger cub

Time with tiger cub

Baby teeth still hurt

With Elephant Bubbles

Doc & his ele daughter Bubbles

With Doc's Orangutan children

Riding elephant Bubbles in river

Diving off Bubbles

Bubbles brings us home

With white tiger and orangutan

With orangutan

United We Fight for the Survival of the Wild Cats

2011-07-04T19:33:00.000+01:00

I was invited to give a keynote speech at the 40th Annual & Anniversary Conference of FCF (Feline Conservation Federation of America) on June 11th in Orlando, Florida. FCF is an organization whose members are private owners of exotic cats for conservation and education purposes: http://www.felineconservation.org

It was good to be among kindred spirits and these cat owners are all devoted to their exotic friends, big or small and they are essential in educating the American public about wildlife and endearing them to animals. I was truly honoured to share our project’s experiences with them. I met some very interesting people and some very interesting cats there too. It was also interesting to know that some oppositions they face are similar to ours and come from the same sources.

Here are a few photos from the event.

TigerLi and FCF advocates

Gift of Handmade artwork to TigerLi from FCF members

Visit to Joel Slavens Animal training facilities

Jean, TigerLi, Dr Sanderson and Mindy

Tiger cub

Dan, Dr Sanderson, and TigerLi

Bobcat kittens

Eden Tran & Madonna Painting

FCF Doc Antle

TigerLi

Tigers Future at Our Hands

2011-06-30T12:47:00.002+01:00

Comment on “The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival “ By John Vaillant
http://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Story-Vengeance-Survival-Borzoi/dp/0307268934/

I am grateful to John Vaillant for going deep into the Tiger and producing a vivid portrait of this highly intelligent and emotionally rich predator, which, were we to put aside our arrogant assessment of our own uniqueness, is every bit as heart-rending and impressive as homo sapiens. In my eight years of rewilding the captive-born South China Tigers (the first generation of which came from Chinese zoos), I have observed every aspect of this large cat's emotions: love, affection, anger, frustration, hunger, sadness, fear, and gratitude. I identify with Mr. Valliant's comment on the tiger's analytical abilities, which changed, for example, Cathay's behaviour towards me - from fear and avoidance in the very beginning when she was first brought out of Chinese zoo, to one of trust and gratitude after she was released in a natural environment in South Africa. When she later became a mother, she even entrusted me to watch over her new born cubs when she took a break in the open air.

The recent reunion of 4 month-old tiger cub Huwaa with her mother Cathay, caused Cathay to produce a unprecedented heart-rending vocalization that I can only describe as choking in tears (if she has any) from being overcome with joy, and as if she was saying "where on earth have you been? I thought I had also lost you to a bird of prey!" (as her sibling from the previous litter). More details of their behaviour can be found in my photo documentary book, "Rewilded, Saving the South China Tiger".

The sad fate of Inspection Tiger as described by Mr. Valliant, also echoes the many other and often larger issues as I have encountered in tiger conservation since I entered it accidentally ten years ago as a result of an awakening - arising from passion for the tigers and all things wild. Sadly, despite the hundreds of millions spent on tiger conservation in India and Russia, there is little result to show, were we to measure it with the numbers of tigers left in the wild as recently acknowledged in a CITES conference. Solutions need to be found on many levels, and not least that of human poverty around these last tiger reserves. Further, how can large NGOs and governments be held accountable for the millions of donor dollars and tax payer money. Unless practical solutions can be found, not necessarily at the expense of traditional methodology, and the tigers' survival is REALLY at the centre of tiger conservation, the tiger's future does not look that bright.

Li Quan,
Founder, Save China's Tigers

HUWAA RETURNS HOME

2011-05-30T20:37:00.018+01:00

The Journey Back Home:

Formerly Miss X, Huwaa was now three and half months old and was a handful-destroying flowers and plants at the zoo. She was taken away from mom Cathay on her 3rd day to be reared in a secure environment in a zoo to prevent the same fate that happened to her sibling the year before (taken away by a bird of prey). Time had come for her to return to Laohu Valley Reserve. Her new name came from a competition held jointly by Save China's Tigers and Sina.com. "Hu" means "tiger", "Waa" is the name of the female ancestor that begot the world’s human population.

On May 14th, we got the truck packed and ready early in the morning at 8am. To make sure Huwaa didn't have too drastic of an environmental change, her human mom Matty and her husband -frrom the zoo-accompanied us, in order to settle her down and also to teach our own staff at Laohu Valley on how to look after her.

Huwaa, having had plenty of experiences of traveling in the back of the truck (I won't tell you how much the vet runs have cost us!) got into the travel kennel happily. A bed sheet covered the kennel so she couldn't see outside the behicle so she quickly fell asleep. The whole 8 hour journey went very smoothly, with a couple of feeding stops at gas stations where the cute little tiger certainly attracted a few curious onlookers.

My plan was to put Huwaa into the left side cages of our breeding center for the time she has to be kept separate from other tigers in case she may carry any disease from the zoo, and have her mother Cathay staying on the other side. This way, she will have her mom's company without coming into direct contact with her. It will also enable us to reduce human contact with her as she gets more and more familiar with her mom, leading to their reunion. If the reunion goes well, Cathay will be able to keep Huwaa company and teaches her hunting essentials, thus overcoming the problems of her being a single and hand-reared cub, who was not properly socialized as a tiger.

To our great relief, she had no problem settling into the cages of her new environment at all, in fact choosing to lie in the wooden box where once her mother gave birth to her older half brothers. She even seemed to enjoy the smells of the box that carried the smells of both her mom and dad. Cathay was let into her side of the breeding center. She could see her baby daughter from across the corridor that separate the two sides of the cages. She seemed to show her recognition of her daughter, emitting chuffs towards Huwaa. Huwaa also frantically chuffed at her mom, albeit distracted by us humans inside her cage at the same time.

By the time we left her after sunset, she was properly exhausted after a long extended period of excitement.. She was quite sleepy when we went back to have a night check around 9pm.

Mother & Daughter Meet Through Cage Bars:

The next morning when we arrived to feed her, she didn't even come to greet us. When she did emerge from the darkness, happy and excited, she run from one person to another, refusing to eat her meat.. Thus I decided to let her into the outside cage, where she would be able to see Cathay close range to start the reunion process.

Huwaa was taken into the outer cage and she quickly took an intense interest in the wooden box there as well, sniffing with great concentration. She liked what she smelled- the accumulation of scents from others tigers. Mom Cathay was watching Huwaa, also with great interests. She chuffed at her but snarling at the same time, unhappy with the presence of a camera man's big camera and the humans that congregated around it.

Much unlike our other hand-reared tiger Hulooo, Huwaa never had any fear of any other animals in the zoo, often went up close to the big lions' cage. She also sought out some animals to play, such as with Matty's cats and the little dog whom Huwaa terrorized. But with Cathay, she went a step further. As if recognizing it was her mother, she chuffed and chuffed, and rolled on the ground in the wet area on the floor, possibly arising from the spraying of Cathay and covered herself with the scent. Her funny posture in rubbing herself on the floor was hard to describe, moving forward lying sideways on the ground.

The most unusual thing that happened during this meeting was the extraordinary sound that Cathay uttered, when she and Huwaa were facing each other on each side of the metal bars. It took both Matty and myself by complete surprise. Although both of us have seen and worked with many tigers, none of us never ever heard this cry before. It was heart-wretching cry that breaks one's heart. If I must describe it, I have to use human emotion to make a comparison. It was as if a human was crying hard while talking at the same time. Maybe she was saying to Huwaa, "Where the hell have you been??? I thought I lost you!"..

We heard such cries twice-though the second time it was shorter. Afterwards, Cathay seemed to return to her usual calm self and Huwaa was let out into the quarantine camp. She carefully checked out this new territory, sniffing around. But soon she was overcome with excitement, dashing this person and charging that body. She also approached her mother's cage from outside, though having trouble balancing herself on the narrow concrete edge outside the metal bars.

It was a good two hours of excitement and although she appeared to be tired, she refused to give up. Like a human child who is stimulated by human presence, we must leave her alone in order to let her calm down and rest. After all, she does have a medical condition of heart echo and we must make sure she is not over-exhausted and has plenty of rest. I was so relieved that her first close encounter with Cathay through the bars went well.

Meeting Daddy & Other Family At Laohu:

When she was led outside into quarantine camp, Huwaa was timid initially. But the presence of humans gave her confidence and she ran around excitedly, from one human to another. She did respond a bit to her Daddy 327's non-stop chuffings at her - 327 almost seemed to know Huwaa was his daughter.

In the afternoon, she was taken out of the breeding center into the open grassland to get some exercise. She loved the freedom, rolling in long grasses, attacking bushes and even chewing on dried thorns. She stalked me in true tiger fashion, with great patience and caution.

The morning of June 16 she met her half brother JenB who showered her with chuffs. Little Huwaa chuffed back. However, it was still more fun to play with humans.

Whole Food:

We decided to start providing her with fresh food. We were all very excited when a guinea fawl carcass was secured and brought to her. To my great disappointment, she would have none of it-not even playing with it, and never mind eating it. No matter how I tried, she showed little interests. In the end we cut the guinea fowl open, hoping the smell of the meat would attract her attention, but again without success. Finally I gave her some meat from the fowl and she ate a few pieces but lost interests again. Even after we took off the feather and cut the fowl completely up she sniffed at the featherless carcass. It reminded me of Cathay and Hope's first encounter with whole food, and I worried she might have a bit of way to go to be rewilded.

But by May 19th, I got totally surprised by her joyful play with the small springbuck leg I had given her the night before. She attacked it, and carried it around like a real tiger would carry its spoils! She also ate quite a big part of it by that afternoon. And when I tried to touch it while she was chewing on it, she uttered just the tiniest little growl at me. I couldn't believe this-she was behaving like a tiger protecting her spoils, and she gave me a few more mini-growls each time I re-tested it. Yes! She was protecting her springbuck leg. How funny this was as she wouldn't care about the sliced meat in her food bowl, nor did she even bother to finish the meat. By May 21st, she had eaten a fairly big springbuck leg! I was overjoyed by her very quick transformation from playing with plastic and cloth piglets to eating whole antelope leg! Soon blesbok legs also became her diet.

Huwaa Meet Mom In Person:

Huwaa and Mom had the most loving session the morning of May 19th, with Cathay stretching her big paw out from under the bars and letting Huwaa touch it. She was so relaxed as there were also just two humans who pose no threat to her. Both mom and baby actually were calmer when there were fewer people, and Huwaa stalked mom from outside Cathay's cage for a good long hour.

It was time to test the physical reunion of Cathay and Huwaa. Conventional wisdom had it that Mothers normally kill their cubs if they have not been together from birth and I was properly warned by kind friends from the zoo community. But again, as quite a few of the experiments we had taken, successfully, they all defied conventional zoo (and therefore unnatural for tigers) wisdom. There would certainly be a risk but given the historical behaviour of Cathay, such as accepting TigerWoods and Madonna etc, I anticipated she would accept her own daughter, never mind that she seemed to have already recognized her.

Their reunification is also important for Huwaa as she needs to be less attached to humans (though this could be a challenge) and learn to behave like a real tiger. Like Hulooo, she will probably forever retain her affection for humans, but unlike Hulooo, she doesn't have siblings that she can be put together with, so I don't have any choice but to reunite her with her own mother. Hopefully Cathay would teach herr to hunt just as she had taught JenB and Coco.

In preparation for this important and potentially risky occasion, I made various preparations beforehand to ensure mother and daughter have a successful reunion. In the morning of May 21st, I myself positioned my

quad-bike Rhino inside the quarantine camp to break down any potential fight that could endanger the life of Huwaa.

Cathay was let out of the breeding center first and she strolled leisurely into the quarantine camp. After that I let Huwaa get into Cathay's side of the breeding center so she can get more familiar with Mom's scent as well as cover herself with Cathay's scent. Huwaa proceeded cautiously but was soon ready to make the move.

The moment I had been waiting and planning for in past months finally came. Gate opened and Huwaa came out to meet mom in person. Cathay and daughter met! Cathay calmly lied down next to the gate and Huwaa chuffed at mommy just as she'd chuff at anyone else. There was no aggression from Cathay's part at all, and it looked as though mother and daughter had never been separated! Soon however Huwaa was ready for her nap and went back into her box within the breeding center. The morning reunion session completely successfully to my great relief, and the moment I had been most worried about did not happen. Cathay had accepted her baby daughter back.

Cathay Shows Daughter How to Eat Game:

In the afternoon, Huwaa was scared by the monitoring vehicles and was afraid to go out into the quarantine camp. I didn't have choice but to remove the vehicles and let Huwaa out to meet mom alone. She was still scared of the potential vehicles so took her time to reach Cathay who was lying at the far corner of the camp. Mother and cub chuffed.

Suddenly a Guinea fawl flew over and in a split second, Cathay sprang forward and caught the fowl. Huwaa was however scared by the flying object, having not yet grasped the concept of winged toys. Cathay set about plucking the feather with her teeth. Just when I had thought the fowl would now be Cathay's snack, I was surprised to see Cathay left the plucked fowl untouched on the ground and went into the shade at the far corner again. What a mother Cathay is! She had actually plucked the fowl for her baby daughter!!

Huwaa was however not impressed and refused to go near the dead fowl. When we eventually managed to entice her to get closer she stopped a meter away from the fowl and then circumvent it. I had to retrieve the fowl and dangle it on her nose for her to take an interest. She then started playing it and carrying it as a real tiger would do.

Believe it or not, we had just written another interesting chapter in the history of tiger conservation on this day-we had broken another rule. We had proven tiger mother does accept her own cub not reared by herself, and she was even looking out for her the first day of their physical reunion. There is a Chinese folk saying: However fierce the tigers they don’t eat their own offsprings.

Huwaa Learn To Be A Tiger:

In the next few days, I made sure that Huwaa and mom were together during the day and separated at night for two reasons. First because Huwaa needs to stay warm within the breedingn center. Second because it would take time for the two to get used to each other after a long separation.

Having always had humans as playmates and never been with another tiger before, particularly a big one such as Cathay, Huwaa was cautious in her approach to mom. She was also not socialized as a tiger so needs to re-learn the tiger behaviors and social order. Somethings she learned quickly, such as defending her springbuck leg against humans, or using her paws to hold it down to make eating easy. Others took her a bit of time and lesson such as never touching a tiger's tail, but Cathay even tolerated her daughter’s antics with her tail.

Huwaa's favorite play is stalking mom when Cathay has her back to Huwaa. At one point, Cathay was grooming herself under the shelter in the quarantine camp when Huwaa initiated stalking her mom. She edged next to the side of the shelter silently thinking mom hadn't seen her. Just when she was about to surprise Cathay, Cathay gave her a chuff, ruining Huwaa's little game - Cathay had known her presence all along!

Another time, Cathay picked up an old bone and started chewing on it. She roared when Huwaa came close and tried to get to it. Huwaa dropped on the ground belly up showing submission while chuffing at mom to make peace. She then found herself a bone to play with. A few minutes later after Cathay finished her snack she came to Huwaa, who gave her mom a little growl to defend her own possession! She had certainly held her fort and learned pretty fast that whoever is in possession of something first, owns it.

In subsequent days, Huwaa would growl back at mom if mom was grumpy at her, chasing mom's tail scaring Cathay into running to avoid it, stalking mom, imitating mom in tacking mom's big fat blesbok meal etc. She is truly on the road to shed her human influence, albeit slowly and with difficulty, to become a real South China Tiger.

Human Influence Hard to Shed

Huwaa made progress but it is clear that her human influence will take a long time, if ever, to be shed. Cathay is patient, even tolerant of her, unlike she was with JenB and Coco that she reared. One day, when the sexually mature Hulooo appeared on the other side of the gate where Huwaa was lying, Cathay thundered over from the gate of the Breeding Center to the two, staging a fight with Hulooo through the fence, defending her “possesion”-Huwaa. Huwaa was terrified, as she had thought mom was being bad to her and she growled loudly at Cathay, even long after Hulooo was moved away. What was impressive was that through out the conflict, Cathay was careful in not treading on Huwaa who was under her feet, even though she did have a little nip at Huwaa’s butt, just as she did with JenB and Coco when they were courting Madonna.

Another time, Cathay was trapped inside the cage, scared of the wooden bed. In her frenzy trying to get out, she kept on slipping which made her even more angry. Faced with Huwaa’s growl at mom’s anxious pacing, Cathay however at no time vented her fear at Huwaa, careful not to step on her. However, Huwaa did not understand all these tiger behaviours and kept growling at mom. Only when I started calling her, did she run out to the other side of the cage and started chuffing. It is clear that Huwaa will have a long way to go to lessen the human influence on her.

Li Quan

May 30th, Laohu Valley Reserve

Collaring JenB and Coco

2011-05-24T17:39:00.007+01:00

Visit SCT Gallery to view the whole process of collaring

We have been planning to collar JenB and Coco brothers for the past half year so we can collect valuable hunting data in the 100 ha hunting camp where it has proven difficult to monitor the tigers during the last year, due to its huge size and difficult terrain.

This morning our vet Joseph arrived at 7am punctually. We have had various dramas collaring our tigers in the past, such as JenB climbing over the electrified fence and Princess running through it, and we hid our anxiety by joking about possible surprises we may encounter today.

JenB and Coco have been separated from Brother Hulooo in preparation of this operation. When we arrived at their camp the two brothers were having an argument, roaring and jumping up and down, but was interrupted by our arrival. That didn't last long as more conflict occurred between JenB and King Henry, who was on the other side of the fence.

We wondered how to get them close to us and into a position which was easier to shoot the dart that carried the sedatives. Just when my new colleague Thinus came back with a leg of meat as enticement, Coco lied down a few meters away from the fence. It would be good to shoot the dart in their butt, but the big cats must have felt something important was happening so they faced us, observing our movement.

Not wanting to loose this opportunity, Joseph fired the dart gun and the dart went into Coco's neck as intended. Coco dashed off in shock. We waited for the drug to take effect. Being a cautious vet, as I mentioned in my previous diaries about the different operations with Laohu Valley's South China Tigers, he'd rather applying less drugs initially and top it up, than overdosing the tigers potentially causing death, especially since we could only guess the weight of the tigers.

After a few minutes the drugs took effect and Coco's pace slowed down. To my anticipated fear, he chose to lie down in the ditch close to the fence which made our operation very difficult. It turned out we were grossly wrong in our estimates of their body weights. When Joseph went forward to test if Coco was asleep, Coco suddenly got up and ran off, repeating the scenes we had before with King Henry in this very same camp two years ago. It took another two top-up of drugs to finally get him properly asleep.

JenB went through the same drama but Joseph did succeed in getting him to sleep too. A nerve wrecking operation started in checking their health conditions, taking blood samples, collaring, and measuring their body sizes.
I was pleased and proud to see how good a condition they are both in, finding only just a few ticks on their body (parasites such as ticks are an indication of the animal's health). But we grossly underestimated their weight. The 150kg scale was simply not enough to get the precise weight but we believed they were at least 200kgs each, not 150kg as we had estimated.

Antidote was applied to revert the effect of the sedatives. After about 10 minutes, their ears moved and tails twitched. Another 10mins, Coco first lifted up his head, then his front body. But feeling drowsy, he froze in each position for a few moments before making another move, and then lied down again. Only after Joseph made a thump on the ground with his testing stick, did Coco suddenly jump up and ran off into the ditch to hide.

JenB woke up soon after at about 10.20am,and also went into the little bushy area. It was important to observe their recovery so my team was on watch continuously till after the sun set. Just like when Cathay and Hope were collared, these two also finding the newly acquired accessory was a nuisance, trying to fight the collar off. In the end, the collars won and stayed on their neck.

Seeing both walking about by sun set, we were all very relieved that another operation completed successfully.

May 17th, 2011
Laohu Valley Reserve

PS: A couple of days later a blesbok was also collared and the two brothers were let into the 100 ha camp.

The first collared blesbok was hunted by JenB after a few days. Here is a photo of the left over. The second blesbok was killed three days after collaring.

Both tigers’s movements can be followed through GPS data. http://english.savechinastigers.org/node/626

Rhino Capture in Kruger: An Art Perfected Since 1960s Starting with Dr. Ian Player

2011-05-20T16:22:00.000+01:00

Li with Kruger vet on rhino capture

Leading the darted rhino to transport truck

Darted rhino in transport case

Lifting transport case to truck

rhino transport case in truck

Microchip & sampling etc for rhino

Lead darted rhino to truck

Rhino arriving translocation camps

Rhino translocation camps

Lift rhino off truck

Antidote & 2nd blood sample to test stress

Open cage door

Rhino backing out of cage into translocation camp

Rhino spends 2 months here for monitoring before translocation

Rhinos in Rehabilitation Center and Game Farms

2011-05-18T13:56:00.004+01:00

The poaching of white rhinos in South Africa increased drastically in South Africa since the South African government implemented a restriction on the number of white rhinos that can be legally hunted per permit (in order to counter the increased number of Vietnamese hunting rhinos in South Africa and subsequently exporting the horns), therefore limiting the number of horns taken out of the country legally. Over 300 rhinos were poached last year, often in a very cruel manner, where the horns were cut off after drugs were darted from helicopters. The rhinos died a painful death. It is of course up to debate that the rhino horns, made of substance similar to that of hair that grows back when cut, have many medicinal value such as curing cancer or reducing fever. But actions have been taken in South Africa which has over 75% of the world's white rhino population, to find solutions to counter this problem. This includes short-term ones such as dehorning the rhinos or poisoning the horns, and long-term solutions such as asking CITIES for permission to lift the bans on rhino horn trading.

I went on a fact-finding mission to record these actions and here is a brief photo record.

Mark @ Careforwild & volunteers

Li with Mark @ Careforwild & volunteers

QL & Banded Mongoose

Petronel & Husband in front of their Fortress home

Founder Petronel @ Careforwild

Baby Rhino Bobby being handreared

Hume's game farm_world's largest private rhino owner

Hume's game farm

Supplementary feeding for rhinos & buffaloes

Some of Humes 400 rhinos

Dehorned rhino mom & baby

Naming the little South China tiger Cub

2011-04-05T17:00:00.000+01:00

(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

Madonna Dates Hulooo & Brothers

2011-03-21T07:00:00.002Z

Hulooo's dad TigerWoods mated for the first time when he was 3 years and 5 months of age. Hulooo has been showing signs of sexual maturity for about a year, spraying bushes and trees, even riding his younger brothers much to their annoyance. Now Hulooo is also approaching 3 years and 5 months of age so I decided to let him and Madonna meet and develop their relationship with a view of getting some love fruit from them.

After a thunderstorm and light rain overnight, the air was fresh and cool in the morning of March 11, 2011. Hulooo brothers congregated next to the gates. We separated Hulooo and let him into the passage leading to the tree camp and opened the gates between him and Madonna. Hulooo took a step into the Tree Camp where Madonna had been guarding her gate and was met by a half hearted roar, after which Hulooo went to quench his thirst as if hiding his embarrassment. Then they behaved as if nothing unusual had happened.

After a bit of milling around, Hulooo went to the big tree after which this camp is named and started sniffing all that interesting scents the tree has collected from Madonna. He hugged it and rubbed his face against it with such indulgence and dedication, following up by an abundant spray at it. After he left the tree Madonna soon followed and hugged it and rubbed her face against the tree with even more enthusiasm, before spraying it with equal care. Things are looking good between the two of them, sexually!

Initially Madonna was charming, stretching herself out belly-up in a seductive manner. Hulooo wandered around absent-minded. But just when I thought he was less interested in Madonna, thundering roars interrupted the morning tranquility when Madonna and Hulooo engaged in a show of force, standing up. But both suddenly flopped to the ground, growling. The cause of this? Apparently while no one was paying attention, Hulooo went up to Madonna and bit her butt! What an impolite act! So in his superficial absent-mindedness, Hulooo had been scheming.

Hulooo decided to keep a safe distance from Madonna while she continued grumbling for the next 15 minutes. After a while Hulooo approached her but was quickly deterred by her continued display of unhappiness and he went about sniffing the ground.

For next few days, Hulooo was let out in the evening and let in with Madonna again in the morning. Madonna, as if not forgetting Hulooo's nip on her butt, continued to growl at Hulooo, blocking his entry either into her camp or access to the water tank. However, while growling, she also displayed inviting and submissive behaviour to Hulooo, such as lying on the ground. At no time did she display aggressive fighting posture such as crouching on all fours. And after couple of days, when Madonna had seen that Hulooo was due to be let out of the Tree Camp in the evening, she decided to block his way out by stretching out before the gate as well. It became a struggle for Hulooo to get around her and get out.

By the fourth morning, Madonna decided to go a step further by entering into the passage way and guarding from outside her gate, making it even harder for an Eager Hulooo to get into her camp and checking out her scents.

Hulooo was however terrified of Madonna's grumbles and occasional roars, avoiding at all costs, crossing her path. Madonna would not leave him alone, following him wherever he went. It looked as if on the one hand she is snubbing him but on the other she was interested in him. Sound like a cat?

Both were treading on thin ice though, and all grass turned into enemies. Each of them had on occasion scared themselves with their own shadows.

By fifth day there was less tension. Madonna left enough space for Hulooo to come into her camp. The scent must have now become familiar so Hulooo also spent less time sniffing and hugging that big tree. The two spent time apart during day with just a couple of close encounters. But before the sun set, Madonna promptly stationed herself next to the gate again to block Hulooo's exit!

Throughout all this testing time for Hulooo, Madonna has been showering friendly chuffs towards Hulooo's younger brother Coco through the fence. I decided to put Coco in with Madonna to see the difference of her reactions. Indeed, Coco was met with friendly chuffs when he was let in Madonna's camp in the morning of March 16, but he headed straight to the leftover bones. Afterwards he jumped on top of the shelter and started tearing at the log, managing to get a piece of the leftover PVC cover off. He then jumped into the big tree, sniffing but not rubbing his cheek against nor hugging nor spraying at it. He is not yet sexually mature.

When Coco finally came over to say hi to Madonna, he was met with a roar, but she never growled at Coco as she did at Hulooo. Coco responded with more chuffs instead, catching Madonna off guard. Embarrassed he went off exploring the shelter again and Madonna followed his footsteps, chewing on the shelter’s log and then followed him into the tree. Before we knew it, the two started sniffing and chuffing at each other in very close range, with half-hearted head rubs. But enough came very soon as Madonna absented herself quickly while Coco picked up another bone to chew on.

Just when we thought they would be now taking their positions to sleep through the day, Madonna came STRAIGHT to Coco chuffing all the way until the two touched nose! But when Coco came to chuff at her later, he was met with snarl and growl. It seems that she only allows herself to chase a male but not the other way round. When Coco sheepishly left, Madonna got up and went in search of him again! Such is the whimsical nature of a modern woman - she has to call the shot!

This kind of exchanges occurred several times during the morning observation and the day ended on an amicable note, with Coco eager to get back to his waiting brothers. Maybe Coco will mature faster now that he has experienced Madonna's charming female scent?

It was JenB's turn on March 18th. The two met with friendly chuffs but Madonna became grumpy when JenB tried to play with her repeatedly. However JenB wouldn't give up. Only after a few rounds of unsuccessfully initiating play with Madonna he decided go and investigate the big tree. Initially, like Coco he showed interests in the scents on the tree but not crazy about it. But after a while, he started seriously sniffing the scents on the tree and rubbing his cheek against it, and made a position to almost spray. Maybe he is more mature than Coco who displayed no keen interests in the scents?

The different reactions towards Madonna by the three brothers seem to highlight that Hulooo, being hand-reared by humans and not a having a mother to interact and discipline him the way tiger mothers do, is unable to properly interpret the signals from other tigers, particularly from females. While JenB and Coco do know how to react to a tigress' whimsicalness, Hulooo got scared from Madonna's grumbles and snarls while JenB and Coco continued their friendly chuffing at her. .

Throughout the encounter between JenB and Madonna, Hulooo lay on the other side of the fence watching. Maybe he will learn something?? We need him to act soon.

End of the Cougar Trail

2011-02-05T04:02:00.000Z

Li & Gary

Gary doing triangulation to identify cougar

It has been for several years since I promised to visit wild cat biologist Dr. Gary K on his cougar research project. I was finally able to spot a window of time to do so this winter season, and before his scheduled departure from this project. All was prepared in very short notice and I arrived in the town of Wenatchee in the middle of Washington State after a long journey. It was another four hours' drive before Gary and I reached Tucanon in the Blue Mountains in the South Eastern Part of the State, where he had been working for the past three years.

Dallas & his hounds

With Dallas the houndsman

Cougar skull

For about 15 years Gary has devoted most part of his time on cougar research, in order to understand their biological behaviour such as home range and life span etc. The method he employs is to find the cougar and tree the cat up a tree with trained hounds. Once in the tree he would dart the cat to anesthetize her but would only give her just enough doze to let her become relaxed, but not so much that she falls asleep completely (to prevent her from falling off the tree endangering her life). When the cat starts to doze off, he would put a net at the base of the tree for safety and then climb up to tie her feet with ropes before adding an extra dosage of drug to put her completely to sleep. Afterwards the cat would be carefully lowered to the ground.

Wind farm

However, it is a challenge to find the cougar. Well camouflaged and extremely agile, it would be even hard to notice her lying just a few feet away in the grass. So the operation would take place in winter when paw prints are visible in the snow. After fresh cougar paw prints are identified, hounds are released to follow the scent of the cougar till the cougar is tracked down. In her defense, the cougar would normally climb a tree.

Hounds working

But there was little snow left when I arrived on Jan 23rd. Upon entering Tucanon Valley, we started to hear the radio signals coming from one of the collared cougars - Cumina. Gary said excitedly that she sounded so close and if she remained in this location the next day, we should re-catch her and re-collar her with a new more advanced and accurate satellite collar.

All the collars had two functions: GPS and VHF. The GPS function sends location data every 4 hours, and one can see the movement of the animal on a satellite map, which is good for understanding its movement patterns. VHF function emits high frequency radio signals that a handheld receiver can detect, and is therefore used to track the animal.

In the next few days, I got to hear repeatedly a number of collared cougars in the valley. Besides Cumina, there were Ms. Woo, Patsy, Lela, Lincoln, Beev, Forest and Marengo. Over the past 3 years, Gary's project had collared about 20 cougars in this valley. Unfortunately some of the collars malfunctioned, some cougars left this area and others died. By now I had heard signals from 8 of the remaining 9 collared cougars. Gary needed to find the remaining unmarked cats in this valley and collar all of them in order to get a full picture of their life and interactions.

15 yr. old Ford acting up

Lacking co-operation from the snow, we had to rely on the noses of the experienced hounds. But it is unreliable as the dogs could be led astray by a cold (old) track which would either waste their energy and our time as they get directed to the wrong direction. Having no other alternatives however, we set out every morning to first listen to the signals of the collared cats, so houndsman Dallas (a retired former Navy engineer volunteering on the Cougar project for past 10 years) would know their approximate locations and would not release the dogs to search for scents in case scent of a collared cat is picked up instead.

Four days went by very quickly and we were only able to hear the radio signals coming out of the marked cougars. Needless to say I had to postpone my return home and do another shift instead. The only promising part was Cumina, the cougaress who seemed to have pitched a den in the beginning section of the valley, suggesting she may have kittens. Triangulation with radio receiver led us repeatedly into an area of dense vegetation. We came as close to her as about 50 meters judging from the strong signal we got. If she continued to stay in the same area when we came back for next shift, Gary said we would capture her to change the collar.

After a few days of break, we headed back to the Blue Mountains. This time we were full of hope, as snow was forecasted. To my great disappointment upon arrival however, the valley ground had no sign of snow!

News came that the satellite collar of the cougaress Marengo had stopped sending signals already as of Jan 22nd. That was strange as we had heard her radio signal very clearly on Jan 23rd. Perhaps the battery was too weak to send satellite signals but still had enough to send radio signals for a couple of more days? This was a setback for Gary's project as they had collected only one year's data from Marengo.

Cougar tracks

Further, Cumina had moved her position by 8 miles down the valley, casting doubt on our prediction that she had baby cougars. My dream of seeing a wild cougar slowly dissipated.

At least it had snowed a bit at upper level in some area of the mountains. Finding two sets of cougar tracks brought me back HOPE again.

The next day was even more promising. In one day, we counted tracks from five cougars in an area, possibly a mother with 2 young babies, one resident male and one male passing through. Of course these were all just educated guesses. I was suitably excited by the possibility of tracking down a cougar. Further, besides cougar tracks, there were also tracks from coyotes, white tailed deer, mule deer, elks and even a couple of wolves. The wolves had most likely moved in from Oregon State. The busy paw print activities most likely come from the facts the predators were following the prey.

Ms. Woo found dead

The next day, before we started hunting for new cougar tracks, we first went in search of the two-year old cougar, Miss Woo, whose collar emitted "mortality" signal the previous morning. We had heard her signals everyday and we all expected it to be just a dropped collar. Never did I expect to find a dead cougar stretched under a tree in the dense vegetation not too far from the road! Miss Woo was in good condition, albeit frozen. She looked healthy, with good amount of body fat. A bit of meat was hanging from the corner of her delicate mouth, probably from the little deer she had hunted and consumed. The possible explanation could be that she choked to death from her food, but we wouldn't know for sure until an autopsy was conducted.

With great sadness Gary carried her body back to his vehicle. Miss Woo was only collared a month ago and with her gone, there was now a larger hole in the data set. To add to this gloomy day, very few new paw prints were found, except one set of large cougar tracks. It was likely a big male and his tracks crossed our vehicle tracks, disappearing into the grassy slope down in the valley, not far from the station where we stayed. The hounds however could not pick up the scent of the tracks, suggesting them to be old, most likely made the day before after we left the area. We had to abandon the effort.

Carrying Ms. Woo to the truck

My only hope now was on Cumina. Miraculously she returned to the same area we found her in the previous week. We spent a good part of an afternoon doing triangulation with the radio signal receiver and finally determined that the cat must be inside that dense vegetation mid-hill in the drainage.

The slope was steep and it would not work to send the hounds from the bottom. Further, it re-enforced our prediction that she had babies, with whom we must be very cautious as the hounds could kill the kittens. We also investigated from top of that hill, which made it look even more difficult to operate. Even if the dogs treed Cumina into a tree, the area she was mostly likely to escape in at the foot of the hills was fronted by a small but steep and icy river, leaving us no room to work even if we managed to cross the river using one of the old fallen trees.

I have never been successful in my first trip to see a particular cat such as leopards and jaguars. I fully expected this was the case with the cougars. My cougar filming project ended here but I fully expect to have better luck the second time round.

Ancient Phoenicia and Modern Lebanon

2011-01-05T12:25:00.010Z

New Year Eve at Le Gray

Lebanon had been on my Must-Visit list for ages, since I had already been to many of its neighboring countries: Syria, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, and Iran etc. My love for this region was founded on my long-held interests in the origin of human species and cultures, thanks to a marvelous world history teacher at Beijing No. 50 High School. Each time I thought of going there, however, Lebanon would be in some sort of turmoil.

Ski Mzaar Lebanon

It was therefore a relief that I finally made it, despite a near-miss due to delayed arrival back to London from Beijing caused by the snow.

Our first stop in Lebanon was Mzaar where we ski-ed for a few days. We were lucky that the resorts opened ahead of schedule due to early snow this year and the slopes were unexpectedly ski-able. Further there were far fewer crowd than many ski resorts in Europe I have been to, particularly around this time of year.

1200 ton Stone of Pregnant Woman

Our next stop was the famous Baalbek, whose famous Roman ruins and the 1200-ton "Stone of Pregnant Woman) have been beckoning me for years.

Hotel Le Memoir was a charming old hotel, recently refurbished. But it was cold. The young man working at the hotel told us heating would only come at 9pm. The heating did come punctually but the shower was not warm. I was

Hotel Le Memoir in Baalbek

looking forward to next morning for the hot shower, but only discovered that the plumbing was broken and there wasn't even cold water. The hotel employee was extremely apologetic about all the inconveniences. At least the day looked bright outside and pleasant, but it weren't going to last long.

Baccus Temple in Baalbek

Tigerli finally in Baalbek - happy me!

After we emerged from the museum inside the impressive Baalbek ruins- (Temple of Jupiter and Temple of Baccus) in mid-afternoon, the weather changed dramatically and cloud covered the entire sky. It drizzled and showered.

We had by then realized that there were VERY few tourist

establishments in terms of cafes and restaurants, AND we had planned WAY too many days in Baalbek. Our hotel was booked for 3 nights but we had almost finished visiting the archaeological sites in the first afternoon, except the famous 1200-ton stone. How were we going to kill the rest of the time?!

Baalbek's Butchers

We had tried a local Shawarma joint for lunch and found out there seemed to be only one real restaurant -Scheherazade in Baalbek. The view from Scheherazade was beautiful-overlooking the Temple ruins, but the place itself was bare and cold. One bizaar thing about Baalbek was that the electricity came on and off. We found out later that Baalbek had only limited municipal electricity supply and most businesses had to supplement their power with generators. The reason? We were told the central government in Beirut does not like the Hezbollah party which controls Baalbek so tries to starve it off through such measures.

Arcada owner making my pizza

We took this inconvenience in stride and the next day made ourselves at home at the Cafe Arcada, the only good looking cafe with a hot fireplace in town-a blessing on an unseasonably cold day (we were told this was the coldest in 15/20 years). The friendly owner Mr. Awada turned out to have lived in Paris and Manchester some twenty years ago and made us very welcome.

Abujula Bakery offered me so many freshily backed and spinach cookies and refused to accept money

The hospitality of Baalbekans was remarkable. I had been offered food to taste by a lady in his Cafe earlier in the morning. When we took a walk in the old town to see how locals lived, I had to learn to stop showing any curiosity in the locals' food after being offered a huge pile of spinach cookies freshly out of oven at the Abujulal Bakery! My belly felt like a balloon at the end of the day.

Little girl fluent in English and whose father has been to Guangzhou Trade Fair

We made friends with young locals who showed me how to smoke the water-pipe and told us about the reformed former-Hashish-farmer-turned-iman who was driving a huge SUV. We chatted about current politics and who was responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri (there seemed to be no consensus on this). I don't even want to pretend that I know Lebanon's history - it reads just so complicated with the constant changing political landscape and SO many different permutations of alliances among the 18 official religious groups.

Mr. Awada took us to see the 1200-ton stone in the Roman quarry in his own car to avoid us walking in the cold rain. So in the end the long stay in Baalbek turned out to be very interesting and I even missed it when we finally bid good bye.

Remnants of Civil war in Beirut

Little chapel in Beirut

Christmas in Byblos

Weather in Beirut was also unseasonably cold and rainy. Evidences from the civil war dot around the city, ranging from bullet holes on building walls to abandoned decrepit buildings.. Beirut is famous for its night life, and Lebanese are remarkably nonchalant about bombs and bullets, hardened by years and probably centuries of instability. In fact, if one looks back at its 8000 years of history, the ancient cities in this region have witnessed so many changes and have had as their overlords the Akkadians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans and etc. Like any ancient cross-roads, it is a salad bowl of cultures and religions that would inevitably lead to conflict. Just look at another example- Afghanistan.

Roman Period Stone Coffin

Beirut National Museum

Byblos, the oldest city with continuous human inhabitation for 8000 years is further such testament. Its archaeological excavations showed the earliest human dwellings, Roman temples and crusader citadels all on the same spot.

Master of the God Baccus

Beirut from Le Gray

3000 year old Byblos Stone Coffin

In fact, every few years one or another political figure would be assassinated and Lebanon appears to be under constant tension of conflict. But the Lebanese do not let this affect their optimism and possess a joie-de-vivre unmatched by many.

London, London: So Near Yet So Far -3-day Historic Journey from Beijing to London

2010-12-22T14:33:00.004Z

Sunday Dec 19:

5am: I rose from bed

5.45am: Headed to Beijing International airport

8.00am: Depart from Beijing for HK with Dragon Air

11.15am: Arrival at HK Airport

12.00pm: Got into Cathay Pacific Lounge to wait for 2.55 pm Cathay Pacific 253 flight to London

2.30pm: Was informed flight would be delayed due to Heathrow airport closure in London and more news to come at 3.30pm.

4.00pm: Got informed CX 253 would be delayed to 6.15pm.

6.00pm: Still no info

7.15pm: Got informed our flight was also cancelled, like several other flights to London

7.30pm: Checked into Airport hotel adjacent to airport courtesy of Cathay Pacific (they provide such excellent service!).

12.00am: No more information to come after my repeated inquiries so I went to sleep watching Nat Geo docos.

Monday Dec 20th:

6am: Checking BB (Blackberry) for Heathrow info. Smsed HK manager to ask help for Cathay flight info.

8.30am: Info said to check with Airlines but airlines said Heathrow still closed.

9.30am: Went to Cathay Pacific Inquiry Desk

10.00am: Was told to re-book flght at Ticket Desk

10.30am: Was informed to go to Check-in Desk since I asked if I could get on Paris flight as Heathrow is still closed.

10:50am: Checked in for Paris Flight

11.15am: Checked out of hotel and met with HK manager

12.30am: Went through airport immigration

2.00pm: Wondered if flight was still on

2.30pm: Glad to hear boarding announcement

2.55pm: Departed for Paris on time!!!

9.15pm: Landed in Charles De Gaulle Airport in paris on time, after over 13 hours.

10.00pm: Distressed to find out there were no Eurostar tickets to london for several days to come. Started working on other options: local trains, ferries, even bus etc.

10: 45pm: Booked on train from Paris- Calais, ferry from Calais to Dover, train from Dover to London for next day.

11.00pm: So Relieved my bags made it to Paris too, as they were checked in Beijing. Another sign of a good airline with excellent service!

12.00pm: Checked into Hotel in Central Paris.

Tuesday Dec 21st:

4.45am: Woke up to plan for bus or taxi journey to Calais just in case trains don't run.

6.00am: Friend Jon replied to sms that the first two trains to Calais seemed cancelled. Checking bus and taxi options.

8.00am: Had a camomile tea for breakfast

9.00am: Checked out of hotel

9.15am: Met with French Tv producer

11.00am: Finished meeting and had quick lunch at hotel

12.30pm: Arrived at Gare du Nord and retrieved train ticket to Calais. Looked promising -the train was not cancelled!

1.15pm: Ordered a decaf expresso and a double cognac to go with at the Station Brasserie

2.28pm: Left with train for Calais

4.20pm: Glad to arrive in Calais train station despite 20-minute delay. Although the station was a nightmare to get my heavy suitcases up and down the staircases, I managed.

5.00pm: Finally got into a taxi (sharing with 3 other nice English people) to head to the Port to take the P&O Ferry across the Channel.

6.00pm: Left with ferry which was actually scheduled to leave at 5.05pm. The three English: a mother and daughter couple, and a young man were helping me with my heavy bags.

6.30pm: Arrived in Dover (Hurray!!!)

7.00pm: Got into taxi with blue Disco lights driven by a good-humoured Iraqi fellow, and got to the Dover Priory train station in Disco mode.

7.15pm: Bought a round of drinks for my helpers and order a vodka for myself at the pub opposite the station.

7.44pm: Left Dover.

8.50pm: Train pullled into London's St Pancreas station.

9.15pm: Said Goodbye to Matt, Ruth and Jeanne.

9.45pm: Arrived home. This would be Beijing time 5.45am Wed Dec 22.

After dealing Volcanic Ash, European snow, I can deal with anything.

Goodbye Snarl?

2010-11-22T18:55:00.008Z

Nov 19th, 2010

THE world's small cat authority, Dr. Jim Sanderson told us in September during our Rewilding Workshop that the caracal Snarl who had been under our care since last year looked strong and mature enough to be released back in nature and suggested we radio-collar her as well before releasing her. We started preparation immediately afterwards.

Our chief scientist Petri organised the re-fitting of an old collar once used by Cathay which was ready and sent back to Laohu Valley by the manufacturer just before our planned release time for Snarl. Petri and Hein tested the radio collar, tracking receiver and antenna- all working fine.

In order to put the radio-collar on her, we would need to sedate her. Though about third bigger than an average domestic cat, the caracal is strongly built with powerful legs and muscles and can do serious damage if she feels threatened by us monstrous sized humans.

Therefore it was not an easy task to put the radio collar on Snarl. Our Reserve Manager Hein built a trap cage and a few days before the collaring and release, the cage was introduced into Snarl's enclosure with food inside, in order to entice her into the cage. The plan was to make her comfortable going inside the cage to retrieve food for a few days. Then during the day before she was due to be released, food was put much deeper inside the cage so her body will have to be completely inside to retrieve it, which would actually activate the trap that triggers the cage door to drop, closing the cage.

All went according to plan and Snarl ended up closed inside the cage today. The Vet Gavin, who was very resourceful in treating Madonna's dehydration a few years back (he used a blanket to capture Madonna), was recruited to sedate Snarl with anaesthesia so she can be radio-collared. Gavin and his wife arrived at 3pm punctually, after one hour's drive from his clinic in Colesburg.

To avoid doing damage to the caracal, Gavin chose to apply contact-injection, in lieu of darting her with a dart gun. He was worried that the dart gun's strong force might fracture Snarl's leg if the dart went into the wrong place, which was not unlikely given that she was extremely agitated with human presence. Gavin's invention worked. He tied an old nylon bag to two strands of steel wires and pushed the bag into Snarl's cage. Snarl, not knowing what this large white-ish thing was, backed into the end of the cage, making it easy for Gavin's wife to inject her with sedative.

An antidote was applied quickly as soon as the caracal was collared and Snarl woke up soon after. She was still drowsy so we waited till about sunset time to release her when it was cooler.

We loaded up the cage to the back of the truck and drove to an area about one km from Hein's house, where a little stream runs with a lot of trees for cover. Snarl certainly didn't know she was going to be free, snarling along the way and trying to attack our us when we carried her cage.

She was about 4 months old when Snarl was brought to us, her mother poisoned by farmers. Caracals are formidable hunters and can take down a sheep in no time. They can even take down a blesbok which is probably at least 6 times their body size. Farmers continue to poison them as well as other smaller predators such as jackals in our area to protect their livelihood.

Snarl was wild and got her name because of her non-stop snarling when humans are present. Although she calmed down a bit, it was not possible to tame her. So we had to take the decision to release her back into the wild instead of letting her spend the rest of her life inside the enclosure. Thankfully, even those hand-reared caracals are known for their wild survival ability. We waited till she would be 1.5 years of age, fully grown so she would be able to deal with competitors such as jackals or other even other caracals. Meanwhile, we started training her to eat wild animal carcasses.

Now, while time had come to open the cage door so she could be free, I wondered how she would survive her first night? Where would she make her territory? Would she stay in this release area, go far away or return to Hein's house? How soon would she be able to hunt? Snarl's pretty little face with beautiful, shining and intelligent green eyes stared at us with hatred, and rightly so. We humans killed her mother, making her an orphan. Now she has to learn, all on her own, how to fend for herself.

We opened the cage door telling her to go out into freedom, expecting her to dash out and disappear into the trees. But she was not aware of her predicament, snarling at us continuously without budging. We had to move the cage eventually to leave her out of it. She turned around to look, suddenly realising she was no longer confined. Crouched low, she slunk away towards the densely forested little stream.

I repeated to her, "Go Snarl, Go! You are free". Inside my heart, I was tortured by the desire to have glimpses of her again, and the hope she can strike it out on her own in the wild.

Nov 22 2010

Hein went early the next morning to check on Snarl's movement again. She moved about 1 km away from the release spot within 6 hours of her release, but walked a only few hundred more meters overnight. The food left for her during her release was untouched. Hein even saw her standing on a cliff during his evening tracking.

Yesterday, she was found to be moving towards north, the springbuck carcass left for her was again untouched.

This morning however, no signal from her radio-collar could be detected. Where did Snarl go?

P.S.: a regular update of Snarl's radio-collar info map can be seen HERE.

Launching “Rewilded” in Celebration of Ten Years of Save China’s Tigers

2010-10-15T10:33:00.006+01:00

Dear friends and supporters,

Ten years ago, on 9th October 2000 we celebrated the founding of our UK-based charity Save China’s Tigers (SCT) at the Chinese Embassy in London. In the years that followed SCT embarked on one of the most ambitious wildlife conservation projects yet. In a last ditch effort to save and restore the critically endangered South China tiger -- of all tigers the oldest – some cubs were taken from zoos in China to our specially prepared “Laohu Valley Reserve” in South Africa. There they were rewilded,in preparation for their eventual return to their native habitat.

The project has not been without challenges and heartbreaks. But ten years on SCT is still alive and well. Our pioneering tiger rewilding program has now received enthusiastic approval and recognition from many of the world’s most respected wildcat biologists, who believe it may serve as a model for future carnivore conservation. Even the term tiger rewilding has been accepted into conservation vocabulary.

To remember what has been a highly eventful decade, to mark this Chinese Year of the Tiger, and to celebrate SCT’s achievements, we have published our photo documentary book Rewilded. It beautifully chronicles the story of a few last remaining South China tigers in their fight to regain their former glory as Lord of Hundred Beasts.

I would also like to use this occasion to thank you -- my friends and supporters -- for giving me your most generous help over the past and sometimes very difficult ten years.

With very best wishes!

Li Quan
Founding Director

With Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran

With Sir David Tang

With Robert Hanson

With Supporters

Book Launch Display

Book Launch in Shanghai Tang London Shop

Zanzibar Shower Cap, Swimming with Dolphins & LCA

2010-09-10T15:15:00.004+01:00

We checked into the very charismatic and well known boutique hotel 236 Hurumuzi on Aug 21st. This old house belonged to Zanzibar's richest merchant in its past life. After checking in at 2pm, we were told that our room was not yet ready and we needed to wait for a few minutes. We had a drink in the scenic rooftop restaurant and made an inquiry trip to the nearby tour office but the room was still not ready when we returned to the hotel. It turned out the bed in our suite room was actually broken by previous guests.

We thought we could at least use the room cleaning ourselves up quickly, and let the workmen resume their work afterwards. But upon entering the room, I was shocked to see the otherwise charming and spacious chamber looking like a workshop, with 6/7 repairmen/staff standing there and one of them waving a wielding gun, dust all over. We didn't have much choice but to repeat to the hotel that we needed the room by 5pm to be ready for dinner meeting at 6pm.

We went out to explore the ancient Stone City. Only then did I understand why the map we got from the hotel had no street names on it, as the streets indeed have no name plaques. Although every Zanzibari seemed to be offering their service to guide us I was determined to see how far we could get on our own.

Zanzibar is a very picturesque city with many years of history and a fusion culture of Arab, India, English, Africa and etc. It has many beautiful architecture. However as we walked about, it turned out to be quite difficult to find our way around. The streets wind around and we soon lost our orientation. After asking quite a few locals, we eventually returned to our hotel. Despite my request and the promise by the hotel, our room was still not ready.

Drama ensued as we wanted our room now and the hotel kept saying it is getting ready, meaning it was not ready. I had learned my lessons and knew another few minutes could turn into another few hours. In the end, I walked up the steep staircases to my room and told the workers to stop their chain saws and just clean it up, as the bed looked ok enough for us to sleep on.

After the floor was dusted off, the hotel staff were quite apologetic and asked what else we needed. Do they have a shower cap for me? A few minutes later, a knock on the heavy antique door brought me two small bottles of shampoo and shower gel. I guestured that I had actually wanted a shower cap. Ah, plastic?! Came an acknowledging and hopeful nod. Ten minutes later, another knock on the door. Stuart answered and then came to me laughing loud, holding an old plastic supermarket grocery bag. This was the Zanzibar shower cap!

Zanzibar is known for its spice farms so it was natural to visit one of them. The young man who was one of the 14 children of the owner of the 3 hectare spice farm turned me into a jungle queen at the end of the 2 hour visit by dressing me up with the earrings, necklace, tiara and etc he made of the leaves of the spice plants-all during our visit!

The day out in the sea in the traditional Dhow Boat was both interesting and disappointing. Interesting because the marina life such as corals and fish we saw snorkeling were beautiful. Disappointing because there were just too many tourists that made it look and feel like a market. But we did manage to see Bottle-nosed Dolphins frolicking on our sail back, which ended the day on a positive note.

Swimming with dolphins has been at the back of my mind for years so seeing them alone was not enough to quench my thirst. So we ended up going on a special dolphin trip very early the next day. I heard long ago human swimmers can get very close to the bottled nosed dolphins. I was so looking forward to spending time with them.

After an hour of car ride, we arrived in the Southern end of Zanzibar- Kizimkazi where we got on a speed boat. The guide told us that dolphins come here every day and the day before stayed around for a whole day in the bay. 95% of visitors see the dolphins when they come here. I was pretty certain that I would see them, even though the sea was very choppy that day and dolphins are not as playful in such conditions.

We were on the sea for an hour but still no shadow of any dolphins. Our guide, who saw so many dolphins yesterday, started making comments on the slim chance of seeing them today. I was disappointed but not surprised. The leopard and the cheetah made me work hard before. So why not the dolphins?? I was already making plans in my head about coming back tomorrow should the dolphins not show up today, even though I was still hoping for a nice surprise just when I was least expecting it.

Two hours passed and still no dolphins in sight. I finally decided to go and see the red monkeys in the Juzani forest first, while our guide left words with the fishermen to alert him no matter when the dolphins showed up.

Persistence paid off. Just when we finished the Juzani visit, news came that the dolphins had come back. We rushed back to Kizimkazi and got on another speed boat and drove out into the sea again. The cloud had cleared, wind died, sea calmed and water returned to azure.

For the next hour and half, I was in bliss as I swam with the dolphin. The plastic paddles for snorkling were too big for me so I ended up swimming, therefore loosing whatever little competitive advantage I could gain. The Dolphins sometimes swam very slowly, almost just hovering beneath us but then would dash off suddenly as if playing hide-and-seek with us. I once counted about a dozen of them and from time to time felt like they were just within touch before they slipped off again. I must say this incredible experience was so addictive and instead of quenching my thirst of swimming with dolphins I now wanted more. I shall no doubt be seeking any further opportunities of doing so!

* * *

I am not very keen in attending any conferences in general but I do enjoy going to the "Leadership for the Conservation of Africa" Council meeting. This year it was held at the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. I was very impressed with Tanzania's management of its wildlife when I visited 10 years ago so returning there was a delight.

"Leadership for the Conservation of Africa"(LCA) is an organisation set up by Dr. David Mabunda- CEO of South African National Parks (SAN Parks). Its mission is to bring business/corporation into conservation. Traditionally, wildlife conservation is managed by government and NGOs and these organisations often lack the efficiency that private businesses have. LCA aims to not only bring funding but also management expertise from the private sector to government in African wildlife and biodiversity conservation. Interestingly, this is what we have been doing ourselves - funding Save China's Tigers and other wildcat projects through business and manage our charity and projects in a cost-effective way. Therefore we were kindly invited to join the LCA meetings a couple of years ago.

It was great to meet new colleagues and catch up with old friends such as Howard Buffet. I ended my 20 days of traveling by taking a Hot Air Balloon safari over the vast expanse of the Serengeti plains..

Aug 29th 2010 Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Sabina the passionate one

Minister OJumbo of Congo

Hot Air Balloon Champaign Tradition

In the air

Over the Serengeti

About to take off

Taller than Marcellino

Lion+ and his kill

All that hippo

All that Zebra

Delegates at LCA

Li and Howard Buffet

Serengeti welcome us

Don't they just look like us

On the day and at the beach where we swam with dolphins

Dhows

Dolphins Huray

Don't offend this door

Spices at Market

Dressing up the Jungle Queen

Zanzibaris preparing meal

Our excellent guide

Spice boy

View from Hotel 236 Hurumzi

Samburu Elephants, Dr. Hamilton and 327

2010-08-25T16:46:00.004+01:00

Equator

Samburu Worrior Dance

Oria & Samburu worriors

Reticulated Giraffes

Impalas Locking horns

Li with Iain

Li with Iain

Li with David and Sam

Marshall Eagle with its Dik Dik kill

Elephants Love

Elephants

Between Friends

Samburu Women

Samburus

Samburu Village

Samburu Woman Milking Goat

Dik Dik

Masai Village

Wilderbeest Crossing Mara River

Flying in Helicopter Over Masai Mara

Aug 13, 2010

It is now the wilderbeest migration season. Millions of them cross the Mara river between Serengeti and Masai Mara and it is a great spectacle. Despite my keen interests to see this, I was always reluctant to go to the Mara as it gets crowded with so many tourists. But on this occasion of filming the elephant story, I decided to also film the migration as background to the story. So on Aug 13th, we got on a helicopter heading to Masai Mara.

Our helicopter pilot Phil Mathews had a gun shot on his right arm and his tibia was broken and now held together by some mechanism for bone regeneration. He was having family lunch on Easter Sunday this year, when five armed gunmen broken in his house. He and his son defended his family and Phil was shot. Sadly no criminals were caught.

On the one and half hour flight to Masai Mara from Nairobi we passed the Great Rift Valley. Despite the number of masai settlements dotted along the way, there is still large empty space left. This looked quite different as I recall seeing a lot of people on my way along the Great Rift Valley to a wildlife reserve when I came to Kenya in 1998.

The migration lasts from about July to October every year. It was now in full swing and many wilderbeest have crossed the Mara river from the serengeti to the Mara side by now. I had seen many blue widerbeests in my life, in fact we have quite a lot of them at Laohu Valley, but nowhere in the world could one see as high a concentration of them as here. Sam who manned our main camera was non-stop filming. However the most exciting part got to be the wilderbeest crossing of the Mara river.

Phil did not promise me much and I now understood why. Often the wilderbeest would stand by the river and refuse to take the plunge. But guess it was my lucky day despite being unlucky with the cold weather in Nairobi, since we did chance upon a wildferbeest crossing! It was breathtaking, as hundreds if not thousands of them dropped into the river to make it across to the other side for greener pastures.

A good day ended with bad news though. A little after 6pm, I got a phone call from Vivienne from South Africa, informing me that 327 is not eating or drinking. Our usual big cat vet - Joseph from Kimberly could not be reached so vet Gavin who is an hour away and who specializes in horse rushed over. 327 was in really poor condition. Why on earth such difficult situations occur always on a Friday (as with Hope's sudden deterioration of conditions before he died) is incomprehensible to me. I discussed Gavin's suggestions of sending 327 to Pretoria's state clinic for thorough examination with Petri. It would be a very complicated operation, as 327 would have to be anaesthetised and then put on a drip for the 6/7 hour trip, if no plane can be found (won't be a surprise give such short notice). We decided that the best option is try to reach Vet Joseph.

It was with such uncertainty and worries that I retired to bed..

Aug 15, 2010

I had little sleep the night before, communicating with petri and team on the best option for 327. Our team was on night watch and the situation appeared to be stable.

It took about 7 hours to reach Samburu, passing green pastures and busy townships equally, as well as the equator. Along the way I was on phone with Petri and team in South Africa to keep on top of status report regarding 327. Vet Joseph managed to arrive yesterday afternoon and took blood sample etc..I was anxious about the results, but fortunately I had to concentrate on the trip, and the amazing game of Samburu took my mind off 327's worries in between.

Samburu National Park is in the middle of the area Samburu people live. They are related to the Masai people and are semi nomadic. Samburu Park has some special game such as the Geremuk, Grant's Gazelle etc. Upon entering the reserve, we immediately saw many Kirk's Dik-dik, and the funny looking long-necked Gerenuk that eat tree leaves like the giraffe. We also had a glimpse of the beautiful Beisa Oryx.

Results came from Vet Joseph late morning today. It was not good news. 327 got chronicle kidney problems and if not treated, his life span won't be long. The vet did not recommend to send 327 to anywhere due to the anticipated danger stress could cause from the transfer and an unknown environment. Fortunately 327 reacted well to anaesthetics (but Joseph is also such a good and cautious vet too!) so he proposed to come back and give 327 drips on a schedule. It is a long trip from Kimberly for Joseph but that is the safest option for 327 really.

We have to do everything we can to prolong his life, though I fear it may not be too long due to the fact that his twin brother didn't even survive to 1 year. Further, my cat Didi also died from inherited kidney problems, despite careful treatment and monitoring for several years.

The rest of the day was so interesting. We met with Oria Douglas-Hamilton and heard her family's remarkable adventure from France/Italy to the depth of africa in 1929, finishing up settling in Kenya..She built her famous luxury Elephant Watch Camp which was flooded badly in March this year, but resurrected in June -they had collected all the household stuff flushed away by the flood from all over the reserve , cleaned them up and re-decorated the lodge in record time.

We met her Samburu warriors working at her lodge- Bernard the head ranger was a delight..After high school, he went to study wildlife management and guiding and he told us many things about the Samburu people. It was interesting that his parents, being Samburu herders, sent all their six children to school. That is pretty far-sighted given that many tribal people are still illiterate despite the government's free education program.

The afternoon trip to a Samburu village was the highlight of the day. Despite being offered to be carried across the Ewaso Nyiro river by a worrior, I opted to walk across myself. But my "heroism" ended up with me looking like wet ducks, since the river level reached up my rolled up jeans. We met the delightful Samburu who showed his prized possessions of goats proudly and had his young wife demonstrate how to squeeze goat milk.

The day ended with the Samburu warriors doing a magical warrior dance by the bonfire!

Aug 18, 2010

We went out with research assistant Chris Leadismo during his monitoring in the afternoon of 16th. We saw several groups of elephants -including those we had seen in the BBC documentary, such as the American Indians and the Royals (all named by Iain's team). It is nice to see familiar "faces".

We were quite lucky to see a bull elephant mating a 9 year old female in the Royal group. I suspected that this would be counted as rape, as a 9 year old is not yet mature. I will be certainly asking Dr. Douglas-Hamilton about it. The mother of the 9 year-old female had been quite agitated knowing the bulls' intention and tried to lead her family away. But the Bull caught up and managed to mount her, even though the two sisters of the 9-year old tried to protect their little sister.

On the way back was an unexpected sighting of a leopard, lying languidly on top of a big rock at the foot of a hill just after the sun had set!

But the highlight of the day was news from Petri, that 327 ate much of springbuck!! This was such good news as 327 could regain the weight he lost and build up his body again.

We spent yesterday and today with Dr. Hamilton's Researcher David and Dr. Hamilton himself. Iain and his wife Oria had a fascinating life. He is a wildlife scientist from an old noble Scottish family. Oria was born in Kenya of a French artist mother and Italian military officer. Iain has been conducting research to save the African elephant for 48 years. Oria and Iain's team have done such amazing work that I so hope I can bring it to the Chinese audience through the tv program we have been filming for.

Meanwhile, Vet Joseph has been back to Laohu a couple of more times to treat 327 who showed remarkable rebound through food intake. Coupled with continuous vet care for the foreseeable future, we do have to feed him everyday now so he can take medicine, instead of every few days as in the wild conditions. But we are read to do anything to help 327.

We saw so much wildlife, many of them for the first time, as many game are different from South Africa. We got so much amazing footage of wildlife as well, some very rare to see. Dr. Douglas-Hamilton and his team were able to take us right inside the elephant family groups that we were able to see the interactions of the family members. This is one of the most interesting trips I did and I know I am coming back here again.

Aug 21, 2010

Sam drove us back to Nairobi safely despite the poor condition of the road and sometimes very dangerous traffic. We bid good bye to Iain, Oria and their very helpful staff and looked forward to seeing them again soon, in China.

(Photos to follow in early September)

Eddy's Cats

2010-08-20T12:38:00.006+01:00

Eddy has always had a way with animals, particularly cats of all kinds.
Any cats, big or small, would breed like mushrooms at his Lory Park, which we now proudly support as well through our Wildcat Fund.

Eddy loves his cats. He is the ultimate gentleman - a man who is so kind and generous hearted to the animals and the animals reciprocate his love for them. Lory Park is a little paradise in the middle of urban jungle.

Murals at Lory Park

Little Jaguar Cub

Eddy and Jaguar cub: Real men love their cats

How can you not love a jaguar cub!

Li and Ocelot

TigerLi and Caracals

Snow in Barcelona

2010-08-04T11:26:00.022+01:00

I am getting lazy. I have also learned a blog does not have to be written. It can be photos, videos, and babbles and noises too. Let me experiment it. I will start with photos. One photo is worth thousand words. So here you go, I have just given you thousands of words to summarize the short breaks I have taken in the first part of this year. No long holiday is in view for the rest of the year either. But my work is my holiday. I am the luckiest soul on this planet. Be jealous!

St Tropez not so busy

Trees at Hotel du Cap

Hotel Du Cap Eden Roc

TigerLi's Adventure in Antibe

TigerLi's Adventure in Antibe

St Paul de Vence

Horse made of horse shoe_ST Paul de Vence

Church Restaurant St Paul de Vence

Kimberly

Cat in Paris Street

Hotel Fuster

Barcelona in Snow

Rare Snow in Barcelona

Chillout in the Snow

Miniature statue

What a wonderful theatre_Barcelona

Barcelona Tiger Graffitti

Barcelona Tree in Sow

Nobody would believe this is March in Barcelona

This is Barcelona

Can China Save the Amur Tiger?

2010-07-14T19:00:00.009+01:00

Excerpt from "Can China Save the Amur Tiger?" by Richard Conniff

So it’s a little startling to hear Chad Oliver, a soft-spoken silviculturalist who heads the Yale Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry, say that when it comes to restoring tigers to their former habitat in Manchuria, Miquelle is taking an approach that’s not just wrong, but wrong in a way that “could lead the Amur tiger to extinction.” The dispute came to a head this summer as the World Bank was drafting a major Amur tiger recovery plan for northeasterm China.

To get tigers back to China, Miquelle, the F&ES team and the World Bank all focus on restoring the population of deer, wild boar and other prey species. A single tiger needs to eat 50 or so ungulates a year to survive. So no ungulates means no tigers, or tigers that are forced to prey on livestock. Oliver, Han and their colleagues want to improve the badly degraded forest so that it produces more of the acorns and pine nuts on which ungulates feed and includes the kinds of open space or cover that different ungulate species prefer. But Miquelle points out that China has yet to take the essential first step of stopping the ubiquitous poaching of ungulates for the dinner pot. Even in the Hunchun Tiger Leopard Reserve on the Russian border, cheap snares made of wire or plastic strips are everywhere. An annual volunteer day has removed 10,000 of them from the reserve since 2001.

“You can do all the forestry treatments you want and not increase prey numbers if poaching is not addressed,” Miquelle told World Bank officials. “On the other hand, if you address poaching as your top priority, ungulates will increase quite dramatically, with or without forest treatments.”

At first glance, the tone of the dispute seems to echo the temperament of the animal. Naturalist lore says that big-predator researchers often take on the fierceness and territoriality of the animals they study. Thus when Oliver and Han first asked for detailed data from the Amur tiger radio-tracking studies, Miquelle declined. Han’s colleagues on the study included Jianping Ge from Beijing Normal University, where Han earned her master’s degree, and Qingxi Guo from China’s Northeast Forestry University. The team, says Miquelle, seemed “interested only in how much they can extract from other organizations for their own relatively narrow interests” and offered little likelihood of collaboration to “maximize conservation impact.” Han protests that the team has, in fact, already collaborated with World Wildlife Fund researchers and would also gladly do so with Miquelle and WCS.

Oliver characterizes it as a clash not so much between personalities, or nationalities, as between environmental paradigms. As zoologists, Miquelle and his allies “may not realize that they are dealing with an outdated scientific paradigm,” Oliver told the World Bank. The preservationist approach, which became widespread in the 1960s, regards all forests as good for wildlife, a dense forest as even better, and all human intervention, particularly in the form of logging, as almost automatically bad. The guiding idea is that forests should be left to grow to their mature climax stage, achieving a more-or-less steady state sometimes characterized as “the balance of nature.”

Oliver is a leading exponent of an alternative paradigm, which also got its start in the mid-20th century. It holds that no such thing as a balance of nature exists. Disturbance and turmoil, in the form of fire, wind, disease and drought, are normal, and the natural result is a mosaic of structures, from open savanna to old growth. A healthy forest is dynamic, not stable, with tree stands of varying types and ages. Many environmentalists now accept this paradigm, at least intellectually. But the preservationist paradigm still has a hold on their hearts, or on the realpolitik corners of their brains. The sticking point for them is that they mistrust the proposed remedies of logging, controlled burning and other forms of active management to make damaged forests healthy again.

But clinging to “the steady-state paradigm” and letting damaged forests simply grow back on their own can be disastrous, says Oliver. In California in the 1970s, for instance, state wildlife officials suppressed fires and allowed bog and grasslands to grow into dense forest. But the lotis blue butterfly, a species endemic to a small coastal area of Mendocino County, needed open space, not forest, and the loss of habitat may have pushed it to extinction. More recently, the predisposition to regard closed forest as the only productive habitat led a wildlife biologist in Florida to assume that the severely endangered Florida panther was a “forest obligate” that would not cross about 300 feet (90 meters) of nonforest habitat. Over the years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service relied on the biologist’s data to formulate its species recovery plan and to make development decisions affecting 38,484 acres of panther habitat. Then it turned out that the biologist had simply discarded almost half his radio-tracking data, because evidence that the panthers were using open swampland didn’t fit with his forest hypothesis.

A steady-state approach could also be catastrophic for Amur tiger recovery in northeastern China, according to Han, Oliver and their co-authors. The region experienced intensive logging from the 1890s up through the end of the Cultural Revolution. The result is that most forests there are now young and dense, a tangle of pencil-thin saplings crowded together with shrubby undergrowth, says Han, who surveyed the forests on foot and supplemented what she saw with analysis of official inventory data and satellite imagery.

A regimen of thinning and controlled burning would dramatically accelerate the move away from the current dense and depopulated habitat, according to Oliver. Freeing up overcrowded oaks and pines would help them grow faster, resulting, after as little as five to 10 years, in increased production of acorns and pine nuts. Clear-cuts would provide critical savanna habitat. “If we do nothing,” says Oliver, “the dense forest will still be there after 50 years.”

Unfortunately, no studies exist to say how many ungulates different forest structures in the region could support or how that would affect the Amur tiger’s recovery there. Han hopes to gather that data with a pilot project through China’s State Forestry Administration, equivalent to the U.S. Forest Service. Based on data from other tiger populations, she and her co-authors assume that the current dense forest structure supports about 6.1 ungulates per square kilometer. For a hungry Amur tiger, that translates into a minimum home range of 288 square miles (745 square kilometers)—about 14 times bigger than the city of New Haven. By contrast, the tiger could get by with about half that home range in a complex forest, combining mature trees with a healthy understory, which would support 14 ungulates. Open habitat would support 41 ungulates. From a tiger’s perspective, that’s almost seven times as much food as in dense structure, enabling it to thrive in a home range of just 43 square miles (112 square kilometers)—about two New Havens.

Han’s proposed pilot study would affect an area of about 71 square miles (185 square kilometers), meaning “you’d have trouble finding it” in the overall forest, says Oliver. But the study needs tiger and ungulate experts, like Miquelle, to help plan the best mix of open space with closed forest, or of hiding cover and browsing cover. “Do you want long, winding clear-cuts, or do you want a big square clear-cut?” Oliver asks. The first might be suitable for prey species that like to stay close to an edge, so they can run back into the forest. The second might be better for species that like lots of open space so they can see a threat in time to get away.

The Siberian Tiger Project has accumulated a rich database on the different habitat needs of tiger prey species—too rich, in truth, to support the idea that Miquelle is simply following an outdated environmental paradigm. He acknowledges, for instance, that “Sika deer and roe deer are associated with broken forests/grassland/agricultural complexes,” so the treatments being proposed by the F&ES team “would presumably help them.” But red deer are a more important prey for tigers, and for them, says Miquelle, “Mature oak and Korean pine forests are needed—not thinned forests and savannas.”

Pending the outcome of pilot studies, the World Bank team endorsed “targeted measures to help create a more diversified and interlaced forest structure,” along the lines proposed by the F&ES team.

The issue may not be the paradigm itself but skepticism that China can bring off an active management regimen in away that actually benefits wildlife. Miquelle worries, for instance, that new openings in the forest will create habitat not for deer but for domestic livestock. Even in Hunchun Tiger Leopard Reserve, local people graze their cattle “right up to the border with Russia.” And if officials are already failing to keep livestock out of a relatively small protected area, then “how are you going to keep cattle out of a multiple-use forest? In such a scenario, you will be investing millions to improve grazing conditions for domestic livestock.”

But to Oliver, this is like saying: “We don’t believe the decision-makers can do it right, so we’ll tell them it is not scientifically sound to do.”

To read the full article on
Yale Environment Journal

Mr. And Mrs. Tompkins: From Patagonia to Patagonia

2010-05-22T17:24:00.017+01:00

Cat in Buenos Aires Street

Where working girl used to live in Colonia

Fishi driving in Colonia, Uruguay

Cat in our restaurant in Colonia, Uruguay

Tigerli & Evangelical Church in Uruguay

Evangelical Church in Colonia del Sacramento of Uruguay

Nice horse

Viscachio

Ant house's ventilation

Abundant Bird life

with team of Conservation Land Trust

Latin Ostrich

March deer at Ibera

with Kris& Doug Tompkins

Anteater to be reintroduced at Ibera

Dog Walking Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires Garbage

"Not many foreign tourists go to Mercedes", said the receptionist at my hotel in Buenos Aires. Indeed, its a long bus ride of about 10 hours away from BA, and this was not even the end of my journey- two more hours of car ride was needed to my final destination - Esteros del Iberá.

Why were we making such an effort to reach this remote area of Argentina? We were not only visiting this great freshwater wetland of Argentina, which generates a huge diversity of landscapes through its presence or absence, but also meet Kris and Douglas Tompkins, who were responsible for creating Estancia Rincón de Socorro- a private reserve measuring 130000 Ha, which eventually led to the government declaring a total of 1.3 million hectares
of natural habitat as protected areas surrounding this ranch. We ourselves
have been doing something similar in South Africa, albeit much later and on a smaller scale.

Ibera joins up very diverse environments, offering habitats to more than 4000 species of terrestrial and aquatic biota, among which at least eight are endemic species, found only in this corner of the globe. Iberá is one of the warm-climate wetlands with more species diversity in the world.

Rain and cold also followed me to this remote corner of Argentina (not far from Brazil), just like many other trips I have had in the last year. After the night bus, we were met by a biologist from Conservation Land Trust, Yamil, who drove us on a mostly muddy road to Rincón de Socorro. Rincón means "Corner", and what a beautiful corner it is (!) - full of capibarras, caimens and etc, including recent reintroduced ant-eaters.

We spent the day with Kris and Douglas, who are well known in nature conservation. Doug was co-founder of the fashion brand Esprit and North Face and Kris is former CEO of Patagonia. They have already helped create two National Parks in Chile and Argentina by buying up large chunks of land and donating to these countries, and are now onto their third one-creating a NP in the very place from where the clothing label Patagonia took its name.

It was enlightening to meet this famed couple and further, comforting to discover that we share similar views on many issues facing the planet, for example, overpopulation coupled with consumerism is depleting biodiversity by driving many species to extinction in unprecedented speed. Further, we share the same appreciation in beauty and therefore the appreciation of the wild and nature. I wonder if this has something to do with both of us working in the fashion business in the past, or rather it is this sensitivity that led both of us into the same industry initially, and now similar efforts to preserve nature's wonders. We also exchanged our respective funny stories. Like some of the bizaar attacks we have faced (eg, I was accused of selling the tiger Hope to my enemies- the Varty brothers who stole money from us), the Tompkins were accused of stealing water from the marsh and selling it to China on the internet! What a fanciful world some people live in their crazy brains indeed.

The next morning, we went on a boat trip to the mash, which is not unlike the Pantanal in terms of scenery and animal life. We had the pleasure of seeing the unique Marsh Deer though. At one point, we saw a screamer (a big bird)spread its wings and just when I thought it was drying its wings in the sun after two rainy days, the Screamer suddenly flapped its left wing and gave the nearby caiman a big slap on its head, frightening the caiman into fleeing into the safety of the lagoon water.

The weather cleared up only a brief moment before cloud took over again, making it hard for our afternoon flight over the reserve to have a bird's view of this vast place. We eventually did take off and despite the overcast, the beauty of this wetland area is evident to all. We managed to also see a few Marsh deer grazing underneath. On the drive back to the hotel at dusk, we saw dozens of Viscachos (a chinchila-like creature), and a fox to add to my repertoire of wildlife sightings.

Further discussions with the managers/scientists of CLT Sophia, Ignacio and Yamil on our respective anteater and tiger reintroduction projects further revealed similar experiences and challenges, which are likely scenarios in any new and ground-breaking initiatives - we will just have to take this as a given and put them behind us.

We also share similar organisational structures-very flat and very little overhead. We focus on actions, not just promises of actions. I understand this is not possible with the big NGOs which have huge admin structures and expensive staff members to support. Nevertheless, I wonder if any of the Heads of these big NGOs would ever take a overnight bus of 10 hours between their reserve and Buenos Aires like the Tomkpins. Stories abound in conservation world on how huge amount of donor funding is spent on stylish travels by these big NGOs.

We left Ibera even more impressed and also encouraged by the Tompkins and their effort with the Conservation Land Trust. If more people and organisations just get on doing something similar, the speed of biodiversity loss may be slowed down, and the health of the planet may one day be on the rebound?

Postscript: May 22nd is a World Biodiversity Day. Suddenly, the UN is acknowledging that biodiversity loss is a bigger issue than climate change and world governments have failed to deliver their on their promises that 190 countries committed in 2002 to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The goal of restoring the South China Tiger to its natural habitat is actually to restore such biodiversity. For years we have been striving for this goal and its comforting to know that UN is finally recognizing that biodiversity loss is by far the most urgent issue concerning health of the planet.

-Li Quan, Buenos Aires

CEO of the Wild Foundation Vance Martin comments on Save China's Tigers Rewilding and Reintroduction Project

2010-03-23T09:51:00.002Z

Vance Martin is CEO of the Wild Foundation, and he comments on Save China's Tigers Rewilding and Reintroduction Project

Tigers in Africa seems a fanciful thought…but they are there! Though they do not roam completely free in the wilderness, the South China Tiger can be found in carefully managed, large wildland areas in South Africa, the subject of an ambitious effort to rescue it from extinction. The 33,000ha (82,000 acre) LaohuValley Reserve is the centerpiece of Save China’s Tigers experimental bid to breed the South China Tiger and eventually return it to its natural habitat.

This effort has generated significant controversy, so I went there in January to better understand what it is doing and to determine its role in the broad spectrum of conservation work occurring around the globe. I found a valid initiative, doing good work, and fighting two battles simultaneously: one to save a tiger (arguably a sub-species), and (as if that were not enough) another to defend itself against the (sometimes) seemingly endless internal sniping of the nature conservation world. Who needs enemies when fellow conservationists often serve that function?!

I encourage you to go to the SCT website to see details. They’re making progress. I’ll just briefly give my response to some of the “sniping” I’ve heard from other groups and conservationists.

1. Tigers don’t belong in Africa. Why start a breeding facility there, almost halfway around the world from their home range? – The historically-proven and commonsense strategy to save a very small remnant population is to create geographically-separated gene pools, or small groups of the survivors, in order to protect them from potential threats such as disease, human pressure, etc. If they breed successfully, and there are adequate wild reserves in their homeland, hopefully they can be returned.
This is exactly the model established by Ian Player, WILD’s founder, when he saved the white rhino from extinction by exporting it to Europe and the US. It recovered from being virtually the most endangered rhinoceros species in the 1960’s to today being the most viable.

2. Why spend all that money on a species that is almost finished? It’s better to direct the funds to other programs trying to protect the tiger species still in the wild. Conservationists are always squabbling over the “conservation funding pie” — and tigers are the most political and financially-oriented of all such squabbles. Save China’s Tigers have done something admirable and unusual—they created a new financial vehicle to raise the vast majority of the $20 million they have spent thus far. They increased the conservation funding pie, not decreased or redirected it.
SCT’s founder and main spokesperson, Li Quan, is not a scientist or “professional conservationist,” and she needs to leave this work to the big, established groups. This is the silliest of all the criticisms I’ve heard. Firstly, the “big established groups” are trying to do their best, but the tiger populations continue to crash. More help is needed. Second, Li Quan is a dedicated volunteer and entrepreneur, committing her spirit, income, and energy to save a species (and, if I am any judge of character, she will likely do even more in the years to come). That’s what we need — more personal responsibility, commitment, thinking outside the box, and action. Third, SCT is more than Li Quan, obviously. They are well-advised scientifically and on conservation management.
This silly criticism reminds me of what many PhD scientists said amongst themselves 25 years ago when Laurie Marker (at that time a self-trained cheetah keeper in a drive-through safari park in southern Oregon) decided she would keep the main cheetah breeding book (“the stud book”). Today Dr Marker runs the most successful field project in the world to save a species, and is a formidable conservation pioneer who continues to think outside the box and get results.

3. Why work with the Chinese government? – Surely the Chinese government is not perfect on conservation—but please name a government that is? Nevertheless, the Chinese are trying, and have even garnered good recent reviews from Traffic on their call for better protection of the wild tiger and its habitat, and the decision by World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS) to ban use of tiger bones and all wildlife parts. SCT has forged an agreement from the Chinese government to create several new wilderness reserves for the tiger, initially two totaling 30,000 ha (75,000 acres), and eventually with more areas set aside as part of a large, long-term strategy. This of course combines with the 33,000 ha (82,000 acres) they bought and manage privately in South Africa. Saving wild habitat is REAL conservation.
The work of SCT is emblematic of a larger issue. The condition of our wild world is far less than good. The reality is that human impacts and actions over many decades now force us sometimes into the choice between taking no action for wild nature (in this case the South China Tiger), or taking an experimental, less-than-perfect choice.

My colleague, brother, and Bengal tiger advocate Bittu Sahgal, of Sanctuary Asia, put it very succinctly to me the other day: “China needs to ensure that an inviolate forest of at least 500 sq km is set aside for the return of these near-extinct tigers. Re-wilding tigers is at best difficult, and maybe not possible. We actually don’t know. These days, we are forced by the impact of human society into a position where we have no choice but to proceed. No action is not a choice.”

http://www.wild.org/blog/tigers-in-africa/

*Vance Martin has been President of The WILD Foundation for 26 years, in charge of the program and financial development for this US-based conservation NGO that was established by Dr Ian Player in 1974. He has also served on the board of directors of numerous other organizations including Cheetah Conservation Fund; Wilderness Foundation (Africa and UK); Conservation and Preservation Charities of America; etc. He is founder and Co-Chair of the Wilderness Specialist Group of the World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN), and the International Director for the World Wilderness Congress since 1981.

WESTS TIGERS TO HELP SAVE CHINA’S TIGERS

2010-02-18T19:58:00.005Z

Wests Tigers has formed a relationship with the Save China's Tigers (SCT) Foundation to help protect one of the world’s most cherished and loved animals from extinction.

With 2010 being the Chinese 'Year of the Tiger', Wests Tigers is proud to support the Foundation following a meeting with SCT founder Li Quan and its Australian representative, Steven Prassas.

The club will work with the SCT Foundation in China to raise awareness of their vital program which sees actor Jackie Chan as an ambassador. The partnership will also open up doors to potential sponsors and new Wests Tigers supporters.

To show their support for the program, Wests Tigers players and coaching staff wore Save China's Tigers t-shirts during a training session at Concord Oval. Interest in the partnership is already strong in China with footage of the local launch to be used there.

Prior to training, model Bec Fordyce was body painted as a tiger by world renowned body artist Tim Gratton for the launch.

Formed in London 10 years ago, the SCT foundation is dedicated to saving the magnificent South China Tiger from extinction. It is estimated there are less than 100 South China Tigers left with most of them living in less than ideal conditions in China’s Zoos. For millions of years, the Chinese tiger roamed the mountains of China.

The Chinese tiger has been a national treasure and an historic cultural symbol of 'protection' for China and its peoples.

In 2003 and 2004 by agreement with the Chinese Government, 4 zoo born tigers were taken to the foundation’s 300 sq km reserve in South Africa to take part in an ambitious breeding and re-wilding program. Re-wilding involves teaching tigers hunting and survival skills so that they are able to survive in the wild.

South Africa was chosen to implement the Foundation’s program because of its leadership in wildlife management, availability of suitable land and abundant game.

In the last 3 years, 8 tigers were born in South Africa with 5 surviving. One of the two cubs born on March 30, 2008 was named Jen- B after the Foundation received a very generous donation of $75,000 from Jennifer Bone, an Australian passionate about big cat conservation. JenB is now a strong, almost fully grown tiger and along with his brother Coco is developing the skills he will need to hunt and survive in the protected wilderness areas of China.

The Foundation's agreement with the Chinese Government is for the re-wilded tigers to be returned to protected reserves in China. Two sites for reserves consisting of hundreds of square kilometers have been selected for this purpose.

According to Chinese astrology, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. It is hoped that these two sites in China will be ready for the tigers towards the end of this year.

"The Foundation is very grateful for the support being given by the Wests Tigers Rugby League Club and its players in assisting the Foundation to raise awareness of the plight of the South China Tiger and the magnificent work that the Foundation is doing to preserve this majestic and iconic animal for future generations," Prassas said.

Dear Friends of Save China's Tigers

2010-02-14T05:27:00.001Z

Twelve years ago, it was predicted by some organizations that the South China Tigers will go extinct by the next Chinese Year of the Tiger (2010).Coincidently that was about when we decided to take on the challenging task of rescuing the South China Tigers from this dire consequence. With the Chinese Tiger Year arriving, this time starting on Valentine's Day of Feb 14th (what a nice coincidence!), there is much reason for celebration as the South China Tiger is still alive and kicking, despite the declaration of its extinction by some organizations recently. And there is hope for its return as King of Beasts back to China's Wild.

It has been a very challenging ten years for Save China's Tigers, and the most difficult obstacles have not been the unprecedented rewilding of the South China Tigers themselves. Despite all the roadblocks, out of the original five tigers we brought from China to South Africa, we now have five second-generation tigers capable of fending for themselves and the number is still growing. To celebrate the tenth year anniversary of Save China's Tigers, the 2010 Chinese Year of the Tiger as well as the possible restoration of the South China Tigers as Kings of Mountains in China, we have undertaken a number of activities as below:
1. We launched an awareness campaign titled "the Last South China Tiger", created by New Orleans body painting artist Craig Tracy who kindly donated his work to Save China's Tigers. These stunning images and video are spreading around the net and you can see on our websites both the still images and the video.
A short version of the video can also be downloaded from here on our website and sent to your friends by email or mobile phone.
Glycee painting of "the Last South China Tiger" is also on sale in our E-shop.
2. We created a Tiger Tram campaign in HK. Please see press release and the cool images of the prowling Tiger Tram.
3. Our book "South China Tiger Diaries" was published by the People's Literature Press, in the Chinese Language. This beautifully designed book chronicled the lives of 5 South China Tigers and their cubs learning to hunt and fend for themselves at Laohu Valley Reserve in South Africa. It described the challenges and setbacks they faced, their love and romance, births of their cubs and their survival training in fun and humorous language. The book is on sale in major bookstores around China.
More exciting projects are on the way. For example, we are working on a coffee table book which tells the stories of our tigers under rewilding training through memorable photos collected during past seven years of their life in a wild place. So watch this space!

Finally, I would like to use this opportunity to thank all of you for providing support for Save China's Tigers over the past ten years. It's a remarkable feat that a small organization like ours is not only still thriving after all this time and all the difficult challenges, it is also going from strength to strength- having set up our Wildcat Fund and started supporting other wild cat conservation projects internationally. Thanks to all of you!

I wish you all a very good Year of the Tiger and make the best of it, as it wont come for another 12 years after this.

Li Quan

The Creation of "The Last South China Tiger"

2010-01-30T19:19:00.011Z

Famed body paint artist and photographer Craig Tracy created a stunning image of a South China Tiger in aid of Save China’s Tigers Rewilding and Reintroduction project, and to mark the onset of the Chinese Year of the Tiger, coinciding with the Valentine’s day this year.

Here are photos showing how he created the painting.

“The Last South China Tiger”

2010-01-20T15:56:00.003Z

Body Paint Tiger Art Donated to Save China’s Tigers

The awareness campaign has been organized by Save China’s Tigers, a charitable foundation dedicated to saving the Chinese tiger, as well the entire eco-system in which it presides as the King of Beasts.

“I initially wanted to call for volunteer models to come forward and have their body painted into tigers to produce a 2010 calendar along with real tiger images. But upon seeing Craig’s breathtaking work in a local newspaper, I thought this was just the right artist we needed, as Craig is two artists in one - painter and photographer”, describes Save China’s Tigers founder, Li Quan of the campaign which also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the charity. “I was pleasantly surprised to get a very positive and spontaneous reply from Craig, whose favourite animal is also the tiger”.

New Orleans based Craig Tracy said of his creation: “When I learned from Li Quan of the plight of the South China Tiger, I wanted to be part of the effort to rescue this most ancient tiger in the world and a cultural symbol of China from extinction.“

The South China Tiger is an iconic symbol in Chinese tradition and culture. This magnificent animal numbered less than 30 in the wild and around 80 in captivity, although some organizations have declared it extinct. The Chinese Year of the Tiger occurs every 12 years and it embodies courage, passion, self-reliance, friendliness, hope and resilience.

Tracy conceptualized the campaign, selected three volunteer models and donated this amazing image to Save China’s Tigers. Signed limited edition fine art prints of this image will be available in the art galleries that represent Tracy, who has pledged portion of all his proceeds to the South China Tiger Rewilding Project.

Tracy’s revolutionary painting technique titled “Painted Alive” incorporates the use of a live human bodies being painted and inserted into a background. A photo is taken creating his limited edition Fine Art. His style is ever evolving with each and every piece he creates.

Li Quan says, “I hope this stunning work will inspire people to help our cause.”

SCT is offering a Giclee photoprint on canvas for this amazing painting. Please visit SCT E-shop for purchase detail.

Dolphins, Sharks and Men

2010-01-06T16:05:00.001Z

On the Virgin Atlantic flight back to London from South Africa, I watched two documentaries. One was "Life" by David Attenborough, and another was an award winning documentary called the "Cove".

As usual, "Life" was a beautiful film with spectacular images showing how animals, including insects, manage to find ways to survive-defending against enemies, acquiring food, finding mates, etc. The beauty of this planet and the animal kingdom was moving beyond words can describe.

"The Cove" on the other hand invoked totally different feeling in me, a feeling of resentment towards our base human behaviours. The film tells the story of a group of international activists led by a former dolphin trainer trying to stop dolphin slaughter in Japan, where 23000 dolphins get trapped, harpooned and sold as whale meat every year in a place called Taiji where sea gulf became a blood bath during such dolphin harvest season. The cruelty of this human act astounded and angered me, the bravery of these activities inspired and encouraged me, and the sufferings of the dolphins brought tears to my eyes and heartache to my soul. Is this what humanity and civilization are all about -treating intelligent fellow earth citizens with such barbarity??

Dolphins are extremely intelligent, probably more so than even humans. They are proven to be self aware, and their sonar system can "see" through objects. There have been many instances where dolphins saved humans from dangerous situations such as shark attacks. The killing still goes on now despite the heroic actions of these activists, as money of the whaling nations can buy power, even though it has been scientifically proven dolphin meat contains high level of mercury due to sea water pollution and prey fish poisoning and is harmful to health.

Speaking of mercury poisoning, it reminds me of shark fin harvesting which is also extremely cruel. Sharks' fins are cut off and then thrown back into water to languish in pain and die. To spare the embarrassment of the big organization I am talking about below, I will also refer the small organization "smallish". A few years ago, a smallish wildlife organization had some scientific research done which uncovered the detrimental effect of shark fin soup to human health also due to high level of mercury in its body, which cause mental retardness in babies, male infertility and etc. However, because this research was done by someone else-a small organization, this big US wildlife organization refuses to publicize it or act on the findings.

I never understand what's tasty about shark fin soup. But even if it did taste better than soybean noodles, and even if cruelty to sharks is not an issue, I would think humans are reluctant to poison themselves and give birth to retarded babies at the least? But I could be wrong.

Regardless of all above, whether we humans can treat animals with kindness or not is a true measure of a nation's level of civilisation.

"Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." --3rd said the 3rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.

Snarl and Night Drive at Laohu

2009-12-30T06:01:00.012Z

Over the years, I have seen more small wildlife in Laohu and its surroundings than any other national parks or private game reserves: aardwolves, porcupines (one often eats the tree bark at night outside my bedroom door), bat-eared foxes, meerkats, hares of all kinds, and even the very rare anteaters - once in slow motion zigzagging ahead of my vehicle.
My reserve staff have of course sighted other precious wildlife such as black-footed cats, african wild cats and caracals, which I have not had the pleasure of seeing in the wild and have been meaning to make an effort to see them. During this visit, I asked our Reserve Manager, Hein, to take me on a night drive to see if I would have the good luck of finding a black-footed cat, which fascinates me particularly as my cat Sisi probably has some Black-footed cat blood.
Hein has had a lot of experience in wildlife before he joined us. We set out after dinner at 8.30pm. All game were active now at night that the temperature had become very pleasant and they seemed to be less agitated than during the day. We could get very close to game probably because they don't see well in the dark. We saw elands, mountain reedbuck, kudos, etc, etc and herds of black wildebeests - some of them with twin calves. When we passed the tiger camps, Hein showed me the difference in reaction to lights between cat eyes and other eyes. When light is shone on cat eyes, their irises close. In the distance, we saw three pairs of lights in straight line dimming and brightening again, as our spot light shone on and off them - these were eyes of Hulooo and brothers.
In order to increase the chance of sighting the very shy black-footed cat, Hein has to call them. He does this by imitating the squeaking sound of mouse using his own lips, or blowing distress calls of rabbits on a predator whistle. In the first round of calls, he got the attention of an aardwolf. Hein also blew jackal howls on the whistle to which real jackals would respond by howling back, but not tonight, as its breeding season and they are nurturing the young in their dens.
After the second round of whistle blowing at another spot, about 9 bat-eared foxes came from different directions to investigate. They were curious little animals with big ears. They ran off as soon as they realized there were no distressed rabbits.
Still no black-footed cats on my sighted list, I had to contend visiting "Snarl". She is a 8/9 month old orphaned caracal whose mother was poisoned by local farmers and who was saved by a friend of Hein. We offered to take her so she could leave the small cage behind and live in a big enclosure. Four months ago, when I first saw her, she was hissing and spitting. It is very hard to tame a wild cat after she has opened her eyes around 10 days of age and the first object she sees is her mother. The power of caracal is legendary - its the fastest land animal by body weight and size, and they can take down a springbok several times their body size piecemeal. I had seen a tame one jumping in one leap to the top of a room door.
Now that Snarl has moved into her large enclosure, she hid herself under the little rock cave, snarling at us but looked a lot calmer compared to being in that small cage. What happened next surprised us all. Hein was watering the grass in her enclosure with a water tube, while suddenly Snarl dashed out under the shower to cool herself down! She dashed back to her hideout afterwards, licking herself dry with contentment.
Our plan is to rehabilitate Snarl and release her back into nature at her natural dispersal age about 20 months old. Thankfully, like most small wild cats, their hunter instinct seem to be stronger and it would be much easier task to send her back to the wild successfully than the tigers!

Didi Please Don't Leave Me

2009-10-21T14:48:00.013+01:00

Photos from left to right:
Didi at Dining table, Didi Presiding Dinner, Didi & his son Darwin
Didi & Son Darwin, Didi Playing Toy mouse, Didi

Didi is not a Peking University Philosophy Cat, but he does belong to a Beida graduate. He is a most lovable, adorable, and sweet natured Black-Smoke Persian Cat.

I came back from the trip to the Americas on Oct 11th and were anxiously told that my cat Didi refused to eat his food. I picked him up and my heart dropped-he seemed to have only bones left.

Didi had gone through quite a lot. Over three years ago, he nearly died. He had two stones removed from his bladder, cysts treated in his right and dead kidney, enlarged left kidney disinfected, as well as an damaged ureter changed, etc. etc. After all these surgery procedures, I was informed by the vet that it was still not certain how long he would live-maybe a few months, or a few years-as kidney failure can not be reversed or treated. Granted, Persian cats, being very inbred like almost all the pedigree cats and dogs, do have this disease more often due to its genetic make-up. My adorable Blue Persian cat Dunrdunr died two years ago in Beijing also from kidney failure.

I am afraid to think that my worst fear may have come and I was still holding out best hope that Didi was simply fed up with his special stone-prevention food he had been feeding on for the past 3.5 years. However his mood is no longer that playful and besides drinking and peeing a lot (all signs of kidney failire) all he wanted to do is lying in bed, preferably with a human around. It was only a few days before Didi was due for his regular check at the Royal College Vet Hospital's Special Reno Clinic, so I resorted to trying to feed him the normal cat food my other cats eat.

It has been six months since Didi's last regular check but things have spiralled down very fast since then. The blood test showed his kidneys are not good and we need to have him X-rayed and Ultra sound scanned to see if he may also have stones. While I anxiously wait for these more tests, I frantically searched for info on his conditions. I read that low protein diet is actually very controversial and does not necessarily stop the deterioration of kidney. Seeing Didi is now even refusing newly changed brand of food of different flavours and format, I decided to buy him fresh raw meat. In natural conditions, cats are carnivores and they should have the system to digest raw meat. Our tigers are in such superb conditions from eating fresh game.

I was delighted to see Didi eat the organic chicken breast with gusto and hope came back to me. However this was not to last longer then two meals. The next morning, I excitedly bought fresh organic baby chicken, patridges, and giblets to provide calcium hoping a change of food again may interest him. I carefully cut up a patridge into pieces and held in front of his nose, he turned his head away. I sliced some pieces off the poulet for him, but he turned his nose up. I gave him some giblets-chicken liver, heart and neck, he just walked away. I was so disheartened that Didi wouldn't have none of them. Afraid he may loose more weight, I resorted to force-feeding him. I let my husband hold him while I pried his mouth open to push food down his mouth. Despite his resistance, I won a few rounds.

However, seeing him walking with difficulty afterwards scared me. Fearful he may have trouble digesting, I massaged his arms, tummy and back. His condition seemed to be loosing fast so I ended up calling the 24 hour emergency service at the Royal Animal Hospital asking for advice at midnight. The next morning I managed to get Didi's appointment changed to two days earlier.

I took Didi to the Animal Hospital for X-ray and ultrasound scans to check for potential causes such as stones, and discussed with the Vet various possibilities of prolonging his life, in the event of kidney failure. To my great disappointment, it seems all the methods such as applying ACE inhibitors, kidney transplant, or artifacial blood cleaning are either not applicable, or not available. I got results from the X-ray and ultrasound just before I headed to the airport and it broke my heart: Didi's only working kidney is enlarged even more and has lost function, and no stone is causing it. This means if there is no other cause for the enlarged kidney, such as tumor, his kidney has failed on its own and will not be able to live any longer.

Is Didi leaving this world, leaving me? I can't contain this thought. I can't bear not having him bringing me aluminium papers balls to throw for him to chase. I can't bear not having him sitting straight up at the the dining table just like a little person and politely raising his little paw asking to share our snacks. I can't bear not having him demanding me to let him inside my bed cover and sleeping next to me with his furry little head rested on my arm...

With such hopelessness, I got on another plane..

Video: Didi and son Darwin

SCT Founders Attended WCN Events

2009-10-20T16:10:00.019+01:00

Photos from left to right:
Li & one of her favourite cars the Miata; Pumpkin Harvest 1; Pumpkin Harvest 2; Pumpkin Harvest 3;
Bray and Quan with Dr. Jim Sanderson and Dr. John Hare; Quan & Dr. Douglas Hamilton; Geoffry's Cat on show at Event;
With Dr. John Hare; American Lynx; Quan with Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. Rodney Jackson;

Oct 2009
Save China's Tigers Founders Li Quan and Stuart Bray attended the annual October fundraising and awareness events of Wildlife Conservation Network in San Francisco at the invitation of its founder Charlie Knowles. During the events, they met with a number of noted conservationists including Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Iain Douglas Hamilton of "Save the Elephant", Dr. John Hare of "Saving the Wild Camel", and Dr. Rodney Jackson of "Snow Leopard Conservancy", etc. and discussed future cat conservation projects with Dr. Jim Sanderson of "Small Cats Alliance" and Dr. Laurie Marker of "Cheetah Conservation Funds". Many conservationists applauded Save China's Tigers effort to save the South China Tiger and restore its habitat in China.