Word: tilson
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...supplemented with those from other subspecies. It is not an image China's propagandists will want to project: a captive population of "Chinese" tigers, enfeebled by decades of inbreeding and reliant on genes from, say, a Vietnamese subspecies before they can survive in the wild. But ultimately, says Tilson, the Chinese will have to accept this hybridization "because it's already been done and they have no other cards to play." It could be up to 10 years before the first pregnant tigers are taken to a remote, enclosed area within the reserve to deliver the cubs that will eventually...
...Tilson got an out-of-the-blue call from the SFA inviting him to Beijing. China planned to reintroduce South China tigers to the wild and wanted Tilson to be the lead scientific adviser. In 2006, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the SFA and Tilson's South China Tiger Advisory Office based in Minnesota Zoo, and the long task of reintroducing tigers to the wild began. Tilson now gets red-carpet treatment in Beijing. "Somebody in China has said, 'This is a top-priority project,'" says Bart Nollen, the Dutch managing director of ICE, which is raising...
...Tilson had to first work out which of the eight surveyed areas might support tigers once again. The winning candidate was the rugged Hupingshan-Houhe reserve, which lies within the tiger's historical range. Its terrain isn't too mountainous (contrary to popular belief, tigers prefer lowlands) and there is plenty of natural vegetation (other areas were blanketed with pine or bamboo trees). The human population, mainly elderly vegetable farmers banished there during Mao's political purges, is sparse and willing to relocate. Not that anyone is likely to stay put when the new neighbors arrive, jokes Tilson. "Once...
...task is restoring the wilderness. Tigers need large habitats and abundant food; just one tiger will eat up to 12 pounds (5.4 kg) of meat a day, the equivalent of a large deer every week. Creating a tiger Eden virtually from scratch feels a bit like playing God, admits Tilson, but restoring the prey (mainly deer) will be "real easy," since all these species once lived in Hupingshan-Houhe in numbers that supported tigers. "We're not trying to reintroduce a bunch of animals and predators into a system that never had them before," he says...
...Tilson opposes tiger-farming - "The day I see tigers on meat hooks is the day I'm gonna die" - and says many of his SFA colleagues privately oppose it too. He believes that official and popular attitudes in China toward conservation are changing so fast that the country's past record is a poor guide for future actions. "That was then," he insists. "This is now." What China does next could decide whether this is a Year of the Tiger worth celebrating...