Protecting China's Wild Manchurian Tiger
ZHIMING & STACY
uring the past ten years, Feng Limin, a passionate young scholar and his team have been focused on a single mission. They spend most of their time in remote mountains, searching the droppings, fur and tracks of an elusive animal. Feng is yet to actually spot the animal in the wild, but his work may change their future fate.
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100 years ago - these animals could be found all over the forests in north-east of China.
50 years ago - large swathes of forests necessary for their survival were cut down.
30 years ago - people said this animal had disappeared in China.
The wild animal is the Manchurian tiger, the biggest feline in the world.
Manchurian Tiger
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Also called Siberian tiger
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The world’s biggest predatory feline
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Around 1 meter tall and almost 3 meters long
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The heaviest weight is over 350 kilograms
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A life span of 10-15 years
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Mainly distribute in Russia, Northeast China and Korean Peninsula
In previous history, there were four kinds of tigers living in China, including the Manchurian tiger, the South China tiger, the Bengal tiger and the Indo-Chinese tiger. However, South China tigers haven’t been found in recent 30 years. Indo-Chinese tigers haven’t appeared since 2009. Bengal tigers are typically distributed in the forests between the southeast of Tibet and India, but their number is unknown. Among these four kinds of tigers, Manchurian tigers are the most populous and can mainly be found in the forests of Jilin and Heilongjiang, near the border between China and Russia.
Does China have a population of wild Manchurian tigers?
Until the beginning of the 21st century, this is a question that no one could answer. The forests needed for their survival had degenerated so much during the 20th century, that their numbers drastically decreased and forced them to the Russian Far East. Manchurian tigers almost disappeared from China altogether.
On the 6th of December in 2013, a video from a tiger and leopard research team of Beijing Normal University exploded on the Internet.
In the video, an adult female Manchurian tiger was walking in the night through one of China’s northeastern forests. Following her were four baby tiger cubs.
It was the first video to ever record a wild Manchurian tiger who had reproduced in China, proving that the animals had the potential to breed and in fact were breeding in China. The large number of cubs was also exciting news. Manchurian tigers have the capacity to breed up to four cubs but it’s much more common for the number to be two or three.
This achievement is just one of the important discoveries Feng Limin and his team have made.
Feng says, "It was the most exciting discovery of all."
This 360 video will show you how Feng Limin and his team work in the wild. And you can move the mouse to see any degree of the environment.
Manchurian tigers are at the top of the food chain in the forest. Their survival depends on a large and complete ecological system.
An adult Manchurian tiger needs to prey on around 50 large hoofed grass-eaters every year. To maintain sustainable numbers, it requires a population of around 500 large hoofed grass-eaters, and a space of around 300 square kilometers.
“Environment is the key factor for this endangered species to survive,” said Feng.
The Food Pyramid of Forest System
This is the main video of the whole multimedia story. It tells how Feng Limin and his team study and protect the wild Manchurian tigers. Also, you can enjoy the greatest shots of the wild Manchurian tigers, which are taken by the infrared cameras, in this video.
Unlike wild Manchurian tigers, those living in the Manchurian Tiger Park were bred in captivity. Everyday, breeders feed them 5 kilograms meat with extra vitamins to maintain their health, but they only can move around in an area as large as half a football field. Even if they have the appearance of Manchurian tigers, they act like domestic cats and seem to lose their essence.
"Some tigers were saved in the wild and sent here, but most of them were born in the tiger park," said Shi Faqin, a tiger breeder, "they have never needed to hunt for food. If we release them in the wild, they may not be able to get food."
In a red building of Beijing Normal University, Feng Limin and his team are extracting and testing the feces of wild Manchurian tigers. This work helps to build a data picture for every Manchurian tiger. Through monitoring and tracking the tigers' activities, they can research the distribution and expansion of the whole species.
"We aim to maintain and enlarge the population of wild Manchurian tigers. Helping them return to nature is the real protection of the species. Now a lot effort is still needed to reach this goal, for those wild tigers are still facing many challenges, " said Feng.
Territorial battle -
The conflict between
Manchurian tigers and humans
Photos are taken by National Forestry Bureau and Feng Limin's team
Hunchun is a city located close to the border between China and Russia. Here, Manchurian tigers' attacks on villagers' cattle happen
frequently. According to a research by the Hunchun Forestry Bureau, from 2007 to 2012, the number of attacks was 50 - 60 per year. The same number reached a peak of more than 100 from 2013 to 2015. Then, from 2016, it went down again to 60 - 70 per year.
It is strange for wild Manchurian tigers to appear in areas with human presence. Why did these incidents happen then? And why with such frequency?
Data Resource: Hunchun Forestry Bureau
Wild Manchurian tigers face three serious challenges in China.
First, the living space is too limited for them to survive. According to a coordinating research between the Beijing Normal University and the Russian National Leopard Park, in 2014 - 2015, the distribution range of the Manchurian tigers in the areas across the border between China and Russia was less than 6'000 square kilometers. In this area live 38 Manchurian tigers, a number that is 3 TIMES the ideal number in terms of available resources for them to live. What’s more, the area is limited on the east and on the south by the Japan Sea, and in the north, it is limited by a large area of wetlands, roads and by the Middle East Railway. So, the area is actually separated from Sikhote-Alin, in Russia, considered as the primary habitat of Manchurian tigers. It also means that the only choice for those tigers living in the cross-border areas to spread, is to enter the inland forests in the north-east China.
Secondly, their habitats have a tendency towards fragmentation and they are separated from each other. In China, the wild Manchurian tigers are distributed in several independent island areas in Jilin and Heilongjiang. They mainly live in the eastern Wanda Mountains, the southern Zhangguangcai Mountains and the southern Laoye Mountains. However, only a small part of the three areas is suitable for the Manchurian tigers to live. As for the eastern Wanda Mountains, statistics have shown that only 11.63% of this area is suitable for tigers to live. The separation of habitats is a great threat to tigers’ survival. It not only caused the shrinking of the living space, with consequent shortage of food, but also isolated the tigers, making it difficult for them to reproduce.
Moreover, human’s activities, such as planting, grazing, breeding, etc. often threaten the already insufficient living space of the wild Manchurian tigers. Among these activities, grazing has gradually become the biggest threat to the wild Manchurian tigers. Hunchun, an area of 6‘000 square kilometers has around 70'000 - 80'000 cows. The density of these cows is much bigger than that of any other large hoofed grass-eaters. Since cows eat out most of the grass, the other large hoofed grass-eaters' survival is threatened: their number has in fact decreased, consequently making it more difficult for the wild Manchurian tigers to find preys. An adult Manchurian tiger needs in fact 50 large hoofed grass-eaters per year.
“I was afraid to graze after a wild Manchurian tiger attacked my cow,” said Liang Zhonghai, a villager of Chunhua Town, Hunchun City.
Watch this video to learn about the detailed information about Manchurian tigers' attacks on villagers' cattle.
“When the Manchurian tigers are threatened by the expansion of grazing areas in the forest, the only choice for them is to attack cattle,” said Feng Limin.
Watch this video to learn about the damage from cows grazing.
A halt to freeways
and high-speed
railways
There ’s been a swift improvement in China’s high-speed railway network. So far, the total length of the overall Chinese high-speed railway network is more than 22'000 kilometers, the longest in the world. However, in some areas of northeastern China, the building of the high-speed railway was stopped or deviated, in order to protect the wild Manchurian tigers' habitat.
If a high-speed connection was built from Hunchun to Vladivostok, Russia, it would in fact cut out the nature reserves where Manchurian tigers live from the inland forests. Thus, the planned route of the high-speed rail will be changed in order to protect these areas, fundamental for Manchurian tigers’ survival and migration.
At the same time, a freeway connecting Hunchun, Jilin and Dongning, Heilongjiang, whose building was already planned, was later cancelled, since its construction would have affected the Manchurian tigers’ habitats.
In northeastern China, the protection of wild Manchurian tigers started in 1996. Jilin was the first province to completely ban hunting terrestrial wildlife. Since then, 1'836 illegal hunting cases have been reported, and roughly 20'000 firearms have been confiscated from hunters. The number of Manchurian tigers’ preys, including Sika deer, red deer, roe deer and wild boar, has consequently increased a lot. At the same time, in 2006, the Jilin local government has started to compensate those villagers’ losing cattle in tigers’ attack. As of July 2015, the government has given compensations on 3’437 cases of the tigers’ attack, for a total value of 215.28 million yuan.
Every year, Hunchun local government spends special funds operating patrol actions and grid managements in the living areas of the wild Manchurian tigers to avoid poaching and hunting cases.
Local villagers also volunteer to join the teams responsible for cleaning hunting nets. Even previous hunters have become protectors of Manchurian tigers. Yu Guicheng is one of them. He had been a hunter for 30 years before joining the tiger protection team. Recently, he even managed to persuade 7 other hunters to abandon hunting and to join his team.
“We cleaned about 70'000 hunting nets in a year. Sometimes, we can even find 200 per day, ” said Li Dongwei, an official of Hunchun Forestry Bureau.
Yu Guicheng was a hunter before, but now he is a tiger protector.
Watch this video, and you will know the transformation process.
A Chinese Yellow- stone Park will be built in the future
In the future, a National Tiger and Leopard Park and Wildlife Refuge with an area of 15'000 square kilometers will be built in China. This park is 1.6 times the area of the Yellowstone Park, and it will provide a protected living environment for wild Manchurian tigers.
In June of 2015, the advice on the restoration and protection of wild Manchurian tigers in China was listed in the 13th Five-year Plan.
In December of 2016, the pilot program of the National Manchurian Tiger and Leopard Park was approved by the Chinese government.
In August of 2017, the National Manchurian Tiger and Leopard Park Administration was established in Changchun, Jilin province.
The establishment of this national park will connect previous nature reserves and ecological corridors, combining all distribution areas of Manchurian tigers. Thus, these Manchurian tigers can share a habitat. Besides, having the national park will enable the protection of the entire ecological system, so that the natural resources like plants and wildlife can be restored and improved. These are the essential conditions for wild Manchurian tigers to survive and reproduce, and can attract more Manchurian tigers from Russia to move to China.
At that time, Prof. Feng Limin and his team will build a new monitoring network, which will cover all areas of the national park. The network will monitor the resources, including wildlife, hydrology, meteorology, soil and other natural resources. Such a comprehensive monitoring system will not only send the real-time data on the tracks of Manchurian tigers, but also monitor any illegal human activities such as logging in the forest areas.
“We hope one day, Manchurian tigers can come back to its hometown. In fact, many animals are facing the survival challenges in the world. Species in the world are going extinct each hour. So it is our hope that the protection of Manchurian tigers and the establishment of a national park will provide inspirations for the establishment of other nature wildlife reserves throughout China and the globe,” said Feng.
Data Resource: Hunchun Forestry Bureau
David's comments on the National Manchurian Tiger and Leopard Park, and the new monitoring network, which will be built by Feng Limin and his team.