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

[peter]

PANTHERA TIGRIS AMOYENSIS - G 


G1 - About a photograph of a wild South China tiger taken by a hunter in 2007

On October 3, 2007, a man named Zhou took a few photographs of a wild South China tiger in the Daba Mountains. A month later, a photograph of the tiger appeared in the public domain. It attracted a lot of attention. So much so, that a researcher decided to study the photographs. Li-Yuan Liu, from the College of Life Science of the Beijing Normal University, also visited the Daba Mountains three times.

In November 2010, his paper was published in the 'International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation', Vol. 2 (11), pp. 338-349: 'The study on the authenticity of the wild South China tiger on an hunter's photos'. Here's the link to the paper:    

http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/IJBC/article-full-text-pdf/679E80A16866


G2 - Conclusions

- As to the photograph that appeared in the public domain: the tiger is not a real tiger. In other words: the photograph is a fake.

- As to his visits to the Daba Mountains. During his first visit, he found two sets of footprints of big cats. In one of them, the forefoot was 10,5 cm. in width. In the other, the width of the forefoot was 13,5 cm. During his second visit, Liu found a tree used to sharpen claws. During his last visit, he found more footprints and more trees used to sharpen claws. He concluded that there were 6-8 tigers in the Daba Mountains in 2009-2010. Good news! But every coin has a flipside. As wild South China tigers hadn't been seen in that part of China for a long time (about 25 years), the Daba Mountains had been largely destroyed. This means that the future didn't look good. 

- I got to a third conclusion. Liu, unintentionally, showed that reports about the presence of wild animals in remote and wild regions have to be taken with care. I'm not saying that Java still has tigers, but it's a fact that there have been many reports from the eastern part of Java. Same for the Caspian region. There have been a number of reports about sightings from Afghanistan in particular, but rumours from the eastern part of Turkey also are persistent.  


G3 - The Daba Mountains

The Daba Mountains are just west of Hubei. It's a very elevated and rugged region located in the south of Shaanxi Province and northeast of Sechuan Province. Hunan is close.

We have decent information about South China tigers shot in the extreme southeastern part of China in the first half of the last century, but we know next to nothing about tigers shot in Shaanxi, Sechuan, Hubei and Hunan. 

Based on what I have, I'd say that tigers from that part of China were different from those in the extreme southeastern part of China. Different coat, more stocky and more variation. Although tigers shot in the southeastern part of China exceeded 9 feet straight in total length in a straight line every now and then, my guess is tigers of that length could have been more common in Shaanxi, Sechuan, Hubei and Hunan. I also think they were a bit more robust and heavier.

Anyhow. Here's the map of China again:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Here's the climate map:

*This image is copyright of its original author

      
 
And, to finish the post, the map of Hubei and Hunan posted before. The Daba Mountains (Daba Shan on the map below) are just west of Hubei Province:

*This image is copyright of its original author

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