Vulnerable Little "Beast Kings"

The tiger is called "King of Beasts" in Chinese culture. When one sees in awe the beauty of such a great beast of a tiger-whether in zoo or in the wild, one can hardly imagine how vulnerable these magnificent kings could be when they are young.

In the wild, they are faced with all kinds of bacteria and viruses that their tiny bodies have a hard time to cope with. Then there are those venomous enemies such as the snakes, scorpions and even poisonous spiders. Further, other predators (including us humans) who compete for food and territory are constantly seeking opportunties to eliminate the competitions' young while they are easy to kill.

In captivity, certain dangers faced in the wild by the tigers are replaced by others. A dirty environment could cause cubs to contract deseases easily but excessive hygiene could lead to weakened immune systems too. Captive tiger mothers often do not know what to do with them so humans have to look after the cubs. Without mother's milk for the first 24 hours, cubs are more prono to deseases. Tiger cubs are vulnerable for as long as six months old and that is why zoos do not even register their existence untill they have passed this critical period.

The South China Tiger's mortality rate is notoriously high in zoos-as much as 90 percent at one stage. Though this rate has been reduced to 60 percent due to improved nutrition, care and environment, you are still talking about 6 in 10 tiger cubs die.

The birth of our first little South China Tiger outside China, has given us great cause to celebrate - it has proven that the South China Tigers can breed better in a natural environment where they become healthier than being caged like prisoners. But it has also added extra sleepless nights to us all. Not only have we recruited outside expertise kindly sponsored by Lory Park Sanctuary to look after the cub full time, our entire manpower is allocated to helping the little tiger. We also have to adapt our rewilding strategies to suit his need as he is being hand fed at the moment.

Despite all we could do, it still remains to be seen if this little "King" will survive the first months. The scare today is a case in point. TigerWoods Junior was found throwing up his food-a milk mixture- this morning and his breath was also weak. He was quickly taken to a wildlife vet two hours away in Kimberly. I was mentally prepared for all possible consequences: the memories from the death of the Tiger Hope came back to me...

It was constipation. He has this problem and we have tried injecting liquid into his rear but now constipation occured higher up in his intestines. Unfortunately it is a hard problem to solve as this is the only substitute for mother's milk available and it does often cause constipation in animals. No substitute can truly replace mother's milk. The vet recommended treatment for the blockage and we have to see if it works overnight...

The bright side: Junior is breathing normally again, and he still has forty percent chance to live! (See Save China's Tigers website for weekly summary diaries).

Massaging (Nieji) the Tiger

I was a baby then but somehow the scene of me receiving the Kneading Massage sticks to my mind. Kneading massage does a lot of good to human babies - it releases tension, increases blood circulation and helps digestion.

When my cats in London had belly problems, I tried it on them-and they seemed to react positively.

When Junior got back from the vet last night, I thought I would try this kneading massage on him too, apart from treatment to loosen his blockage. He calmed down and seemed to fall asleep. I can't be sure it helped but I do know that more and more veterinary practices in the UK now apply the more gentle herbal therapy to cats and dogs wherever applicable., particularly for a small animal, anaesthesia could also mean the animal never waking up from the induced sleep.

We took junior to the vet again to X-ray and to my great relief, the blockage was mostly gone. Junior became feisty again too -crying his heart out and pattering his paws. I was most grateful to him for this show of protesting being stretched out on the X-ray bed! It means he is returning to his normal self...

South China Tiger Cathay Giving Birth

I remember how angry she looked when she snarled at me when I first saw her in the zoo cage in China four years ago. I remember how grateful I felt when she gave me a first ever chuff after she was moved to our wildlife reserve in South Africa.
I remember how puzzled she looked when she caught her first live prey. I remember how proud she seemed when she made her first successful hunt.
I remember how determined she was in tackling a difficult enemy. I remember how lustful she appeared when she was pursuing a mate.
Now she is giving birth! The birth of first ever cub, the rebirth of our project. We have established a milestone. We can tell our critics: to stop talking and get into action!

She has not made it easy for us. Having been fully rewilded, she was so angry being caged and refused to be inside the proper quarters. I was torn between letting her having her way therefore giving birth wherever she chooses out in the open, and confining her to the breeding centre purposely built for the birthing. This is a choice between leaving these first ever born cubs to nature's will, and securing the cubs at all costs by human intervention.

But the goal is clear, we are trying to rescue the last of the South China Tigers from extinction and the birth of these cubs represents new hope. We have to help them, as we have done in the past years with our unconventional ways. We must be ready to try any untried methods in order to save this subspecies.

It was unseasonably cold in the night of Nov 23 and all our staff wore winter clothes. Cathay, after more than a day of pacing, finally gave birth to a male cub of 1.20 kilo-larger than usual-at 11.30 pm. seeing it motionless and soundless; I had thought it was dead, especially since the mortality rate of the South China Tigers is about 60 percent in Chinese zoos. Cathay, looking back behind her, saw this thing too. She started licking it. There seemed some life to the thing..."Licking it, please lick it", we prayed. But Cathay picked it up with her mouth, albeit gently, and started pacing. She was probably look for a dark place to hide it but there was no dark place except the indoor quarters that she had not learned to like. We had to intervene or the cub would be frozen to death. With a purposely made hooked-pole, we tried to swap the cub from under her. She lounged forward, trying to grab her baby. For a moment my heart froze-fearing she might have caught it, and caught it too hard which might have killed the cub. But luckily, our team got hold of the baby, and he was taken through emergency care measures. He let out a cry half an hour later, much to my relief. Fortunately Cathay had only one cub in this first litter of hers, so we would not have to worry about her reaction were we to take away her other cubs.

I am so grateful for the selfless support of many to make this successful. I am particularly thankful to Eddie Van Ecke of Lory Park Animal and Owl Sanctuary for helping us making this event go smoothly..

We have also learned some new lessons for our program. Our challenge is much bigger than simply undertaking a rewilding experiment which we have succeeded nicely. Our goal -which we can never loose sight of, is to save the South China Tiger from extinction.

TAMIL TIGERS & YALA LEOPARDS!

JAN 10 2007 I said to Stuart at the outset of the new year that one of my goals in life is to be a good wife. I put this into action: for four days I endured the air-conditioning in the car, even though my body has a long history of getting incredibly ill with it since 1986. On the fifth day, I lost my voice and fever ensued. My good-wife actions stopped there and then -I made both my husband and the driver travelling without air-conditioning, and I become entirely anti-social drifting off to sleep at the back seat of the car. With my fever refusing to go down despite all the paracetamols, I had to take hot baths to sweat to force the fever down a number of times. Needless to say, we had to skip a few scenic areas including the Horton Plains National Park! Healthcare in Sri Lanka is very good and it was an interesting cultural experience. A visit to a small town doctor set me back by 3 US dollars and yielded me three kinds of antibiotics, three kinds of pain killers, one cough syrop and one sleeping pill. All the medicines were prescribed for three days though. Since I had no voice, I didn't want to argue for 5 days of presriptions, which is the norm in the West. When I fell ill with something similar during my visit to Syria, I was able to succesfully convince the village pharmacist to sell me an extra 3 more days of antibiotics.
I won't state the obvious such as one can't be mistaken this is a Buddist land- with Buddha statues everywhere. Travel guidebooks do this much better. But I must say I don't know how Sri lanka can hide this treasure island from the eyes of the world! It has incredible ancient monuments-palaces, temples, rock paintings etc and abundant wildlife-the most famous being the leopards! I regret not having come here much earlier. Sri Lanka had very developed agriculture in ancient times and the land was heavily cultivated. It now offers a fine example of nature rewilding. Natural looking reservoirs called tanks- ancient and new, dotted all over the landscape. One can hardly imagine many of the wetland are also man made.The jetwing Vil Uyana lodge where we stayed is a mini-restoration project returning rice paddies to wetland, establishing a healthy eco-system. We sighted a variety of birds, including peacocks and even crocdiles next to the hotel restaurant. Even the Yala National Park was rice paddies two thousand years ago, which was turned into hunting ground and later declared National Park/Nature Reserve, with a small section open to the public. Srilanka had its famous problems with the LTT-Tamil Tigers separatists. Although cease-fire stopped in 2002, guerrila war continues till today. However, it is not that much different from Irish terrorist movement in England in the 1990s. The LTT angers the average Tamils more than the majority Singhalese. It gives them a bad reputation and prevents them from going about their business. Thanks goodness no major activities happened to disrupt my trip, except two suicide bombs which went off in Colombo, one actually on the last day of our trip which killed a government minister. We happened to pass that road a few hours later and saw all the rubbles and on-looking crowds…. At least for me, no matter how breath-taking man made monuments are, nothing can compare the natural heritage we have inheritaed on this planet - the fresh air, the trees, plants, and of course the animals. I was very pleased that Yala was finally opened on New Years day, although the military had to do morning search for another two weeks so entry to the park started only at 7.30 instead of 6am. I could not believe how beautiful Yala is, situated right on the Indian Ocean. And call it Eden if you wish-I saw spotted deer, jungle hen (national bird of Sri Lanka), wild boar, and numerous peacocks perching on the very top of tree branches within the first ten minutes entering the park. And I am not even counting the birdlife. At the end of the morning, I had seen a bathing elephant and a leopard! The leopard view was a bit of a struggle. Our very first "sighting" turned out to be an armed solider! Then when our guide heard the coughing sound of a leopard, we patiently waited for about half an hour. After all the other vehicles had lost patience and left, the leopard came close to our jeep, albeit lied down underneath the thick bushes. We struggled to see him through the tree branchese but we did see him-stretching out his graceful limbs leisurely! this is certainly better than first time I went to Africa! The South Luwanga National Park in Zambia is reputed to have the highest naturally occuring leopard population but it pales compared to Yala which has about 50 leopard in 1000 square kilometers-an average of 1 leopard per 20 sq km. Yala's 1000 sq km is devided into 5 blocks, with only block I's 350 sq km open to the public on normal days. But due to the recent terrorist movement, > only 40 sq km of Block 1 is currently open. Yet just within this small area, we saw plenty. During our fourth and last game drive, just when I had given up hope to see any more leopards, one was spotted. It was a big male, perching on top of a huge rock overlooking the Indian Ocean. All the tourist jeeps in the park rushed over to see him, as if on a mission. The leopard was a bit far but with the aid of binoculars, one can see this magnificent work of nature. I stayed on watching him watching the ocean, wondering how much more or less he appreciates the surrounding beauty, than my admiration for him.... Reluctantly we had to leave before the park's closing time at 6pm. Luckily for the leopard, he could stay on that big rock looking ever so magnificent under the sky, now he was left undisturbed by his human admirers.

Is the South China Tiger saving us rather??

Who is saving who? Are we saving the South China Tiger or is the South China Tiger saving us?

Isn't the South China Tiger saving us too? Saving us from indifference to their plight, saving us from ignorance of their Eco-systems, saving us from loosing our own natural heritage, saving us from forgetting our own cultural identity, and saving us from destroying the very environment that we human need for long term survival!

Whether Zhou Zhenglong's photo of the "wild South China Tiger" is real or fake, the attention it is getting is proving the power of the "King". It is a mirror. It puts our human integrity to test. It amplifies our human weaknesses. It exposes our human greed. If we humans are wise, we should see the picture the South China Tiger has painted us. We should take actions and make necessary changes. We should do something for the tiger, for the habitat, and for the environment.

But Alas, when are we going to become wise?????

Celibrity South China Tiger Cub

Nearly 6 days have gone by, our little South China Tiger cub "Tiger Woods Junior" has gown from 1.20 kilos to 2 kilos today. The attention he received is overwhelming and he is delightfully oblivious of his celebrity status!

The interval of his food intake has increased from every 2.5 hours to every 4-5 hours. When he drinks he patters. He eats well, but decided he would not drink the milk with the added ingredients that help his stomach digest. Oh Well!

When he sleeps, he twitches, probably dreaming about.........! He has a homing instinct to find his little carrier kennel but gets it wrong from time to time and ends up in the corner between his small kennel and the wall. He has got a big kennel today but only sniffs around it and goes in to explore and then crawls out of it.

He cries less now and utters a kind of "miaow" when he wants attention. He can track where the human voice comes from and then tracks it down by crawling to the source. And Boy he crawls fast!!! Being such a strong baby now I wonder what he would be able to do when he is ready to go out and catch his first game!

More later!

The Cat Clan at Laohu

I inherited many farm cats when we bought the 17 defunct sheep farms in Philipollis (south africa).

At Villa TigerLi, there was Mommy (I named her so because she was the source of all the other cats), her son -Mau, her daughter- Sissy, and litters after litters of all of their adorable offsprings.

At Stuart's Cottage, there was the adorable King Cheetah Cat, and a grey striped one. These two beautiful and friendly cats both sadly disappeared before I finally made my home at Laohu Valley. Fingers crossed that they found good homes who took them in.

I started my campaign to befriend the cats at Villa TigerLi asa I start making extended stay there. Mommy was relatively easy. She is a beautiful cat with colors that hint at a combination of wild african cats, blackfooted cats and ginger cats. She got a moon face with dark eye circles. She wanted interaction, even though she was scared of this new human after a long period of human absence in this house. She was more difficult to approach when she had a litter of six ginger and grey striped cute kittens, which were grabbed by the towns people who would queue up to obtain one of them.

During one stay, I enticed her in and shut her inside the house. She was surprisingly attached to me and spent the whole night with her little head sleeping purringly against mine. Since then, I was a friend to her and eventually, she accepted my whole team. When she had the most adorable litter of six kittens again, she promptly made herself home on top of a sofa at our staff's house. No amount of effort could make her stay in her maternity ward- the carton box. What surprised me most was when I went to visit her and her one week old babies, unlike other cat mothers, this ex-feral cat proudly purred when I picked her kittens up, showing them off to me! Our staff kept two of her kittens- Tiger and Nikitta. Their father must have been wild african cat -given the coloring, and the big size of these cats.

Then there is Mau, who just one day showed up at Villa TigerLi. I was told by towns people that he was living at the current staff house that we inheritated and when the last residents of the house vacated, he just walked the 6 km all the way to Villa TigerLi to find human company again. There was no need to tame him- he behaved as if he always lived inside Villa TigerLi. When our new staff moved inside their house, he promptly walked back again, since there were more company there! What a human loving cat!

Sissy was a more difficult case. She clearly wanted attention, but ran away whenever I tried to touch her or pick her up. She is the most beautiful of all-with her mothers' face and markings of blackfooted cats and a tiny size ( she most likely carries that wild blood!)..

I did succeed to get Sissy inside my house from time to time when I visited. With time she improved but felt still scared. Like her mother, she seemed to be very proliferic. Her kittens were always so pretty and wild and we could only admire them from a distance or hear them on my roof.

Last June, on my way from the airport to our reserve, I was informed by my staff gleefully that they managed to catch Sissy and neuter her the previous week, so she won't mate with the wild cats anymore to polute their genes. I sighed: wish we had a litter of kittens from her first!

I saw Sissy that evening. Interestingly she seemed to be a lot more approachable now. She did not resist when I picked her up and took her inside and like her mother, she refused to loose sight of me. She wouldn't even eat the deliciously fresh locally made biltong and dried sausage if I was not immediately next to her. She also has this intriguing habit of pushing her head against my hand or head before she eats the food as if thanking me, a trait she most likely inherited from her equally polite mother-mommy.

Next morning, while I was working on the laptop, I thought I heard some kitten's miuaos incredulously. I gimpsed this image of a cat fromm the corner of my eyes. To my amazement, it was a tiny little kitten cast in the image of Sissy! A battle ensued between me and the tiny kitten who fled to a bathroom. I had to throw a towel over her at the corner to catch her and tried to retrieve her from from the middle of the towel. She sank her sharp little teeth inside my thumb and I had to squeeze her little jaw to tear my thumb away. I finally managed to hold her tight in my blood stained towel and put her inside my huge bathroom.

Sissy came miuaoing to ask being let inside the bathroom and the kitten was certainly very pleased to be united with her mother and suckled on her. The kitten could not be more than 4 or 5 weeks old so our staff had unwittingly neutred Sissy without knowing she just had a new litter of a baby. I could only guess that Sissy, having been neutred, became friendly to me in the hope of getting human help on feeding her baby, knowing that she might or might no longer produce milk due to the neutre..

I observed the kitten, who continued the motion of suckling off Sissy, but I was not sure if there was still any production of milk. I laid out the dry food. The kitten ate a little. She was so adorable with that cute little moon face that I felt the urge of picking her up. That proved to be not an easy task and she always won in my battle to catch her.

I called our reserve manager Peter about this exciting news. Peter was on his way over. While I was waiting for Peter, I saw another little Sissy appearing in my living room-the kitten must have escaped from the bathroom! Just when I chased after her, Peter arrived and joined my effort. While Peter followed the kitten again into the guest bathroom, the cleaning lady came shouting: "Cat! Cat!". I knew she was scared of cats. I told her not possible- the cat is in the bathroom. "No no! In the kitchen!"

I hurried over there and indeed there was yet another little Sissy! Peter, having caught the last kitten and put him in my bathroom, joined me in this frenzy. With broom and towel, we managed to catch this one too.

When we brought this kitten to my bathroom, we saw all together there were three little kittens in the image of Sissy. Obviously after a night of absence from their mother who was kept in my room, the kittens traced her down and followed her scent inside my house one by one...

I decided to tame these kittens while I stayed at Laouhu for the next four days, while discussing with my staff what to do with them. I kept them in my big bathroom with concrete floor- therefore easy to clean. I gave them cat food and water. I took any breaks from work to go in and watch them. I tried to cuddle them against their show of rejection- their snarling little faces which I found most entertaining and adorable. I was most amazed to find, after the first night in my bathroom, all the pooh was at or near the sink hole of my shower! I could not believe what a civilized cat family this is. Sissy never makes a sound throughout the night-she always waits till I wake up in the morning to ask me to let her out for her daily routine. And now we have her well behaved kittens!

Next we had to decide what to do. Every one of our staff members had enough cats already, mostly from the Mommy clan. I reluctantly agreed to finding homes for two kittens but would keep the little male, who seemed to be more comfortable in my arms. Having been mother-reared up to now, they might never be that tame, so we agreed that the potential onwers must have had exprience with semi-wild cats and be patient with their independence.

I had to leave for jouburg on business. But it didn't take any time at all for Ronel, Peter's wife, to find two enthusiastic local families to adopt the kittens. I felt relieved to know they were good homes and one of the ladies had a semi wild cat which had died sometime ago.

When Ronel called me to report that actually three ladies showed up (one mother and daughter team) I knew it spelt trouble. I was pursuded to part with the little boy kitten. Reluctantly I complied- he would have more love with someone who is always around than from an absentee owner like me- though it was a decision I always regreted.

When I returned to Laohu a few months later, Sissy became scared of humans again. I tried using her favourite dried sausage to coax her inside but it was difficult-almost as if bearing grudges against my decision to take her babies away. I persisted in my pursuit with but just a little progress.

When I returned a few months later in january this year, I continued my endevours. Sissy might have forgiven me - asa I got hold of her and put her inside my bedroom, she just seemed to be tagged to my legs-following me everywhere in the house.

Soon she was able to spend the night on my bed. Soon, she began to stretch out-a sign of feeling comfortable and relaxed. In May this year, I accompanied the new tiger 327 from China to South Africa. One morning, I noticed my right shoe was wet. Sissy had urinated on this shoe- which had been grabbed hold of by 327 the day before! Sissy had started defending her territory-my bedroom! One day, she also brought me a dead mouse. Not knowing whether I liked her tribute or not, she was hesitant. She ran out with it when I chastized her, for which I felt guilty for days after.


Now whenever I return to Laohu, I can count on her punctually wait for me at 6.30 inside my house-Villa TigerLi, as if relishing the time I am there and tries to spend as much time with me as possible. She purrs nonstop if I pick her up. She pushes heads with me. When I am not at Laohu Valley, I worry about her being alone. I was so relieved to know she had continued to come inside the house to spend the night. She is finally feeling at home.

Game of Big Cat Love

Anyone who owns cats truly understands why the term "Sex kitten" is applied to sexy human females. It is hard to resist a cat's seductive power. Once a writer said: "One either loves cats, or does not know them". Let's rather hope this is so -better than believe there are such hard-hearted humans who are not touched by the seductive power of a cat!

Watching the game of love being played by the biggest cats of all is a great previledge, for which I am truly grateful. Cathay started showing signs of oestrus a couple of days ago-allowing TigerWoods to smell her rear etc. Yesterday afternoon, she was at her most seductive self.

She would rub her head against TigerWoods, cuddle up to him, slap him gentlly, push him playfully, jump over him light-footedly, in an effort to get TigerWoods mate with her. But when TigerWoods tried to bite the neck of Cathay in mating position, she would dash off. TigerWoods also did not want to show he is easy to get. When he is snubbed, he would just go and lie down by himself when Cathay had already positioned herself right in front of him!

I don't know what happened at night. At 5.30am this morning when I went to see them again, they both went to sleep around 5.45 am, very early compared to the normal 7.30am when the sun starts to shine hard.

During the afternoon monitoring at about 5.43pm, I heard the distinctive roars coming out of the 9 hectare camp and rushed over to find Cathay rolling belly up. It might be the heat-the two were not mating as frequently as in August. I waited nearly another hour before another successful mating attempt occurred. There were a couple of attempts between the two successful ones where the couple tried, but struggling to co-operate. One can almost feel that Cathay got frustrated or annoyed and just sauntered off from under TigerWoods, while he was still busy positioning himself.

Its been three weeks since Cathay gave birth. The first time a tiger comes into oestrus again after giving birth is normally the most fertle. Fingers crossed we will have some more South China Tiger babies in a few months' time.