ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[peter]

PANTHERA TIGRIS AMOYENSIS - D

d1 - The government-sponsored war on wild animals in China

I'm preparing a number of longish posts on the period 1945-1970 in central and southeastern China. In order to be able to get the picture straight, I need to translate the articles I read in a number of Chinese newspapers and magazins. I don't mean I need to translate them myself. The problem is in the translations in that they are not, ehh, perfect. There's no other option but to translate the translations, if you know what I mean.

There's one story that stands out. It's based on documents from the period 1950-1970. Some of the people, or their (grand)children that featured were interviewed. It's quite a story that happened in the 1950-ties. If I hadn't read the articles, I would have dismissed it out of hand. But it really happened and I will do a series of posts on it. 

Before I'm ready, I will do a few posts on the South China tiger. They can be considered as a preparation. In this post, you'll find a bit more on Hunan province. I added a link to a book I never heard of as well. I read a part and think it's very interesting. I'll start with the book. 

d2 - 'Tiger Chase'

This book was written by Andrew McDermott and published in 2002. It's well-written, very informative and also has a lot of suspense. A must-read for anyone interested in tigers in China:

https://books.google.nl/books?id=auMigdsqPv8C&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=eradication+of+tigers+in+hunan&source=bl&ots=iWZ0qpvTXN&sig=43MVXZAgC0a3kwO-6MOU-9Ex0p4&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2jIDyi_HSAhWHaRQKHQjiBQ8Q6AEISTAG#v=onepage&q=eradication%20of%20tigers%20in%20hunan&f=false

d3 - Hunan

The story mentioned above (see d1) happened in Hunan Province. Before I'll post the story, I'll post a few maps. I know you're not that interested, but the maps are vital to understand the story.

d3.1 - Hunan Province

Here's a map of China posted before. The Province in red is not Hunan, but Shanxi. Hunan Province is east of Guizhou and Sichuan, south of Hubei, west of Jiangxi and north of Guangxi and Guangdong. It's right in the heart of southeast China and it had many tigers half a century ago:  

*This image is copyright of its original author

d3.2 - Vegetation zones 

Hunan is situated in the zone that has subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest:

*This image is copyright of its original author

d3.3 - Climate

Hunan is situated in the Cfa-zone (humid subtropical):

*This image is copyright of its original author

        
d3.4 - Topography

Hunan is situated east of the Tibetan Plateau. Most parts are very elevated and not suited for agriculture. The capital is Changsha. This city now has over 6 million inhabitants:    

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply