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Save China's Tigers
AbbreviationSCT
Formation2000
FounderLi Quan
PurposeTiger conversation
Key people
Stuart Bray
Brad Nilson[1]
Kun (Michael) Shang
Heinrich Funck
Websitewww.savechinastigers.org

Save China's Tigers (SCT) is an international charitable foundation based in Hong Kong, the United States, and the United Kingdom (headquartered in London) that aims to save the big cats of China from extinction. It focuses on the Chinese tigers (South China tigers). It also has other branches in Mainland China and South Africa.

Aims

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Stud tiger 327 with his potential mate, Cathay

The organization's primary objective is to raise awareness regarding the vulnerability of the Chinese Tiger, while advocating for its protection and preservation. This mission is pursued through public education, the introduction of advanced conservation models, and experimentation with these models both within China and internationally. Additionally, the organization seeks to secure funding to support these conservation initiatives. Another aim is to act as a liaison for all those organizations concerned with the conservation of China's wildlife, sustainable development, biodiversity, and habitat. The organization's goal is to reverse the fate of the South China tiger from the brink of extinction by taking them out of zoos, breeding them, letting them regain their hunting abilities, and reintroducing them back into the wild.[citation needed]

History

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Save China's Tigers, organization logo

"Save China's Tigers" is a conservation organization founded in 2000 by Li Quan. Li Quan's then-husband, Stuart Bray, who had previously worked as an executive at Deutsche Bank, played a crucial role in providing financial support for the organization during its early stages.[citation needed]

Rewilding

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Origin

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The word "rewilding" was coined by conservationist and activist Dave Foreman,[2] first occurring in print in 1990.[3] The concept was further defined and expanded by conservation biologists Michael Soulé and Reed Noss in a paper published in 1998.[4] According to Soulé and Noss, rewilding is a conservation method based on "cores, corridors, and carnivores."[5]

The Process

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Tigerwoods mounting Madonna

In order to be successfully reintroduced into a wild environment, tigers must know how to hunt prey and have to be able to defend themselves. Once in captivity, an animal will gradually lose its ability to survive in the wild, and will likely die if released.[citation needed] Thus, Save China's Tigers started a rehabilitation program to help captive tigers regain their survival skills.[6](subscription required) Rehabilitation steps taken by the project include feeding the tigers with carcasses of small game. Once the tigers are eating the new food items, live animals similar to those taken dead will be occasionally introduced into large hunting camps. The SPCA claimed that this process was cruel to the prey, but the South African courts refused to issue an interdict.[7]

The Laohu Valley Reserve

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Main article: Laohu Valley Reserve

The Laohu Valley Reserve (LVR) is a roughly 350 square kilometer private reserve near Philippolis in the Free State.[8] It has been created with the aims of rewilding captive-born South China tigers and for South African biodiversity conservation in general. LVR was created in 2002 out of 17 defunct sheep farms,[9][10][11] and efforts to return the overgrazed land to natural status are ongoing. The South China tigers at LVR for rewilding are kept confined to a tiger-proof camp complex of roughly 1.8 square kilometers, with other areas of the reserve being used to protect native South African species. The word "laohu" is a Chinese term for tiger.[12]

The Tigers Involved

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In April 2014 Madonna gave birth to three cubs, two females and one male. The father of the cubs is Tigerwoods.[13]

On 20 November 2015, two South China tiger cubs were born at Laohu Valley. The mother is Cathay and the father is King Henry. The birth of these cubs brought the number of South China tigers within the care of Save China's Tigers in the Laohu Valley Reserve to twenty. At the time, this represented more than 20% of the world population of the world's most critically endangered tiger.[14] However, in February 2016, one of the two cubs died, leaving nineteen South China tigers in the reserve.[15]

Obstacles

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Stud Tiger 327 with blesbuck carcass

A difficulty faced by the project is the limited gene pool for South China tigers – all the South China tigers in Chinese zoos are descended from only six individuals caught in the 1950s.[16]

The WWF says that the money is being spent in the wrong place and that the Amur tiger has a stronger chance of survival over these tigers.[17][18]

Controversies

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Li accused her former husband, Stuart Bray, of using charitable funds for personal expenses.[19] This was reported in the Daily Mail, which damaged the charity's reputation with the public. However, Stuart Bray was acquitted of misappropriation of charitable funds in a court case decision in October 2014.[19]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Save China's Tigers. "The Team". www.savechinastigers.org. Archived from the original on 3 March 2023. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
  2. ^ Caroline Fraser, Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009), p. 356.
  3. ^ Jennifer Foote, "Trying to Take Back the Planet," Newsweek, 5 February 1990.
  4. ^ Michael Soulé and Reed Noss, "Rewilding and Biodiversity: Complementary Goals for Continental Conservation," Wild Earth 8 (Fall 1998) 19-28.
  5. ^ Soule and Noss, "Rewilding and Biodiversity," p. 22.
  6. ^ Morell, Virginia (7 September 2007). "Can the Wild Tiger Survive?". Science. 317 (5843): 1312–1314. doi:10.1126/science.317.5843.1312. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17823325. S2CID 262843473. Archived from the original on 18 November 2023. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  7. ^ "SCA hears NSPCA tiger training appeal". Independent Online. 17 May 2008. Archived from the original on 24 October 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  8. ^ "Rare Tigers Raised in Africa to be "Rewilded" in China – National Geographic News Watch". 30 March 2011. Archived from the original on 30 March 2011. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  9. ^ Liu, Cecily (16 October 2010). "Rewilded: Saving the South China Tiger". Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  10. ^ Blandy, Fran (13 December 2007). "South China tiger finds hope in South Africa". Archived from the original on 11 October 2012. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  11. ^ "Save China's Tigers – Hope's Story". Archived from the original on 2 October 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  12. ^ http://www.laohuvalleyreserve.org/background/[permanent dead link‍]
  13. ^ "Endangered South China Tigress gives birth in SA – South Africa – The Good News". 2 September 2008. Archived from the original on 2 September 2008. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  14. ^ "Two New Beautiful Cubs!". Savechinastigers.org. 20 November 2015. Archived from the original on 20 March 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  15. ^ Kit Chellel (23 February 2016). "The South China Tiger Is Functionally Extinct. Stuart Bray Has 19 of Them". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  16. ^ "Breeding | Save China's Tigers". Archived from the original on 23 January 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  17. ^ "Tiger finance, a banker's effort to fund survival". Reuters. 16 February 2011. Archived from the original on 3 July 2020. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  18. ^ Rhino, Save the (19 January 2023). "Changing China in the Year of the Tiger | News". Save The Rhino. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 4 January 2024.
  19. ^ a b Chellel, Kit (23 February 2016). "The South China Tiger Is Functionally Extinct. This Banker Has 19 of Them". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 22 November 2022. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
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