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South China Tiger is extinct in the wild ?
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Somewhere I read, an animal that hasn't been seen in over 50 years will be considered as extinct. South China Tiger which, although can be found in zoos, hasn't been seen in the wild for over 25 years. Therefore it is suspected that the South China Tiger could be extinct in the wild.
What you guys says ? Is it really South china tigers are gone from the wild? I would love to read your thoughts over this topic. 
I hope not.
Edit: It looks like most experts do think that it is in fact, extinct. Not seen for 25 years and they technically wait until it goes for 50 years before declaring it extinct, like you stated. Sad to see another Tiger sub species going extinct, Malayan and Sumatran are both going in that direction next. Hopefully something is done sooner than later, before its too late.
Saving a tiger or any other animals depends on Economical condition, Willingness, Lifestyle, Awareness, methodology, history and education of the country and its government.
People of the respective country must have love and respect for their animals. Chinese government and I guess most of the people from china are world list concerned people about wild animals. In fact the methodology of china believes in superstitious related to power in dead animals body parts. The China is no doubt world leader in adopting, manufacturing and using technologies but they firmly believe in their culture and history. No matter how educated person are in china but they firmly attached to its culture and their culture believe in body part of tigers, Horn of rhino and such other things. Neighboring country is not different at least when it comes to the culture and methodology beliefs. The case of Sumatra and Malayan tigers are almost same. India has now changed his mentality and so the Russia is doing great. The people from India and Russia has shown their concern and worked hard to bring them back. So in short the fate of any animals survival in human era is dependent on nature and kind of human's sub species around them on earth. 
Is the South China tiger extinct in the wild? Yes, there are no more wild tigers of this subspecies/variety in China.
There is hope to save them? Also yes, the Save China's Tigers program is doing good in South Africa and those now-wild tigers are even larger than they captive brothers. Still, if the idea of Dr Kitchener is correct (no subspecies, just clinal differences), the South China tigers in Africa could benefit with new genes from wild Indochinese tigers, assuming that there are still tigers over there. The last census estimated less than 1300 in the entire region (2010) and probably the number in these days is less. . The Malayan tigers are not as bad as we could think, there is a population of about 400 to 500 specimens according with the last estimation (2010) and Malaysia seems to be compromised to conserve them. In Sumatra, the situation is difficult, and the conflict is considered "normal" which is a big problem for conservation. Last numbers (about 300 in 2010) reveals that this population, the last of the Sunda tigers, is greatly endangered, more than any other tiger population in the wild. Tiger conservation is hard and will take a great deal of time, money and effort to revert the current situation. At this moment, only India-Nepal and Russia have hopes in the long therm, but many of the Indian populations will survive ONLY if they are interconnected. "Islands" like Ranthambore, Bandhavgarh and Sariska, among others, will not survive if they are not interconnected with other tiger reserves. 
Yes, no more South China tigers.
China, however, seems to have a nice reproduction in captivity program, with more than 5000 tigers, all subspecies. Anyway, I think the Siberian tiger has the best long term prospect. They still have a good habitat and Russia seems to be very determined to protect them. I believe all of you already know the last good news from Russia: there are more than 500 wild Siberians and the population seems to be increasing. I am afraid of the situation in India. India is a 1,2 billion people country and the economy is growing very fast ( around 7,5% a year). If the tiger´s habitat is already a problem now, I suspect the situation can only get worse and worse in the future, with a lot of pressure to build roads, etc inside reserves. But I know India is very interested in saving the bigcats although it is really sad to read that this year budget to Project Tiger was cut in 15% compared to last year. (06-04-2015, 02:18 AM)'strana' Wrote: Yes, no more South China tigers.In fact, in Russia, tiger numbers have been growing and even in China where its thought to be unsafe seems to have seen a growth in Amur Tigers as well. Its definitely looking better for siberians and Indian Bengals, the sumatran, Malayan, Indo-chinese still need our help I think, as with all tigers that is. http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-c1-ch...story.html  (06-04-2015, 02:32 AM)'Pckts' Wrote:(06-04-2015, 02:18 AM)'strana' Wrote: Yes, no more South China tigers.In fact, in Russia, tiger numbers have been growing and even in China where its thought to be unsafe seems to have seen a growth in Amur Tigers as well. Its definitely looking better for siberians and Indian Bengals, the sumatran, Malayan, Indo-chinese still need our help I think, as with all tigers that is. Because the Northeast China/Manchuria is much less densely populated than the South China, hence the Amur tigers got a chance to struggle for their survival. And the wildlife ecosystems in India seem still to be relatively good, so maybe they could introduce the South Chinese tiger to the border between India and Myanmar.  (06-04-2015, 02:47 PM)'Siegfried' Wrote: Wouldn't the introduction of P. tigris amoyensis into India put at risk the concept of subspecies purity? I'm curious about this as well. I always wonder about the fact that they thought about using an Amur tiger to reintroduce in Caspian Tiger territory, could you do this with other sub species. We see how close size between Amur and Indian bengals are and morphologically how close they are as well, I wonder if introducing other sub species would ultimately change one sub species to another if they live under the same condintions. Just a thought (06-04-2015, 09:02 PM)'Pckts' Wrote:(06-04-2015, 02:47 PM)'Siegfried' Wrote: Wouldn't the introduction of P. tigris amoyensis into India put at risk the concept of subspecies purity? Before the human interfence, all tiger subspecies were lived close to each other, and those subspecies who shared a close geographical proximity always mixed with each other. I am pretty sure that the Indochinese tigers and Bengal tigers who lives in the border of Myanmar and India often mixed with each other. The South Chinese tigers are very closely related the Indochinese tigers, also quite close to the Bengal tigers, so if they relocated these tigers to India/Myanmar, then it should be natural for them to mixed with the local tigers, since they have done that for million years before the human interference. (06-04-2015, 02:47 PM)'Siegfried' Wrote: Wouldn't the introduction of P. tigris amoyensis into India put at risk the concept of subspecies purity? Historically, the South Chinese tigers were known to share border with other 4 tiger subspecies such as Amur/Bengal/Caspian/Indochinese. There were also record of the Bengal tiger found in Southwest China, so there was very likely to orchestrate the genetic exchange with the South Chinese tiger that lived nearby. These so-called subspecies could be very likely being artificial and perhaps only existed after the human interference. Prior to the human interference, the boundary between the tiger subspecies could be pretty vague, and the subspecies had a lot of genetic exchange with each other. Unlike today, they are all genetically isolated.
To be or not to be, that is the problem...
Based in genetic and biogeographical studies, tiger subspecies are just an artificial creation, based in human interference, according with Dr Kitchener, however Dr Luo and her team presented evidence that there is enough genetic differentiation to separate "subspecies". However there are questions that the genetic studies has not answered in its own results, like why the Bengal tigers are completely separated from the other subspecies and closer to Sumatran ones in the diagrams? Or why there is genetic "differences" between Malayan and Indochinese tigers but there is no one based in Morphology? This last is incredible, as morphology was the base for the establishment of all the traditional 8 putative subspecies. In fact, if we see how many tiger specimens has been studied by old taxonomist, there are not even 20 animals used, at exception with the over 27 Indochinese specimens used by Mazák. The problem with this is that there are not enough specimens to study and just in India, for example, there are enough differences between populations to classified them as different "subspecies", following the old taxonomy. Check that in north India, tigers are as large as the Amur ones, in Southern India they are like the Indochina specimens or larger, and in the Sundarbans they are like the Island tigers. However, ALL those variations are just one single population. Dr Kitchener stated that all those differences are just clinal, and modern studies on skulls from J. H. Mazák showed that the only difference is between the Mainland-overall, the Sumatran and the Java-Bali tigers, in other words, just three subspecies. Interestingly the Caspian tiger skulls are like the "generic" mainland tiger with characteristics of all the populations, showing a previous separation before the sub-specification of all the other populations. From all what I have read and study, South China-North Indochina population is the original one (those that survived the Toba eruption, a very small group), cranial and strip patterns are just variations and irrelevant in the taxonomy right now. Latter, one population spread to Central Asia via the silk corridor and give origin to the Caspian population, which lived and evolved in the areas with plenty of water. However, the population of China spread to Indochina and gives origin to new populations as far as Malaysia and Myanmar, but not as north as Manchuria (not yet) and not into India which was very dry (a lion paradise in that moment). Still, the Sunda shelf was connected to Malaysia up to 20,000 years ago, which suggest that possible, there was some genetic interchange, giving origin to the Sumatran tigers, which get isolated with the rise of the water. At 12,000 years ago, tigers began to spread to India, which was more wet and the Caspian tigers already colonized the Manchuria and Amur region trough the north of Asia, avoiding the desert of Gobi. The Sumatran population and Java-Bali were separated with they own group. The true separation of the mainland tigers in south east Asia was until the heavy persecution of the humans, in Russia the separation between the Caspian and the Amur tigers was just about 200 years!!! The separation between Indian and Myanmar tigers was never clear, as the river used to separate them (Irrawaddy - Ayeyarwaddy) can be crossed easily by any tiger. The isthmus of Kra is nothing for a wild tiger, it was until the human pressure that this geographic bottle neck really affected the animals in the area. From my point of view, mainland tigers were always capable of crossing any barriers, except deserts and the tallest mountains. There is no possibility of discrete "subspecies" and even when they could exist (like state Dr. Luo), these can't be fully separated. From my point of view, there are/were only three subspecies: Mainland - Panthera tigris tigris. Sunda - Panthera tigris sondaica. Sumatran - Panthera tigris sumatrae (other will say tigris x sondaica). Interesting a new study of Dr Yamaguchi showed that Sumatran tigers are more closely related with the Sunda tigers than the Mainland, suggesting that the interconnection between the three islands lasted much more after the separation from mainland, and the tigers were probably able to travel between that large original island that latter were separated completely in Sumatra, Java and Bali. However, modern human intervention was successfully separated tiger populations. The Amur tiger is the most differentiated, although is the most modern (separated from the Central Asia population about only 200 years), has the most specialized skull and is fully different than those of other areas like India, Myanmar, South China or Indochina. Those of India are very close to Indochina, while those in South China are more "primitive", but still can be fitted very well with those of Indochina and even Malaysia, morphologically speaking. The genetic study of Dr Luo probably present modern separations of the "core" populations, which are/were probably different between them, but all the "buffer" populations, now extinct, probably hold the key of the real interconnection between the original tiger population. In the present, the populations of tigers are so fragmented that they should be conserved like the taxonomy proposed by Luo et al. (2004) and Driscoll et al. (2009), after all, modern Zoos already had they Studbooks organized in that way: 1. Amur-Caspian tiger - Panthera tigris altaica (virgata should be the correct one, as is older in the taxonomical archives). 2. Bengal tiger - Panthera tigris tigris. 3. Indochina-Malayan tiger - Panthera tigris corbetti (I am not agree with the separation, it seems more like national pride). 4. South China tiger - Panthera tigris amoyensis (the African population is the best at this moment, for this group). 5. Sumatran tiger - Panthera tigris sumatrae. Now, what about the "re-introduction"? Dr Driscoll proposed the reintroduction of Amur tigers to the Caspian region, however other tiger experts (I forgot they names) greatly criticized this idea, after all, why to reintroduce tigers in new areas when those in they native territories are still poached, killed and in great danger??? I am against any reintroduction, we most stop the bleeding first, there is no need to create new wounds. 
Sadly they are almost certainly extinct in the wild, but I know they are breeding them in South Africa
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