The family, can't hide, the cat has initially conquered the Chinese this matter, I'm afraid it's a real hammer...
At the beginning of July, the topic of "the number of cat owners in the mainland exceeds the number of dog owners" has successively topped the hot search of various social platforms, which has completely ended the "cat and dog war" that has lasted for many years.
On the data:
In 2021, the mainland cat population reached 59.5%, the number of domestic pet cats exceeded 58 million, according to the forecast of earlier British institutions, in terms of cat food consumption alone, China will surpass Japan by the end of 2022 and become the earth's "cat sucking power" No.1.
"Science and Technology Daily" reported in July that on Douyin alone, the number of cat-related topics exceeded 980,000, the number of videos exceeded 45 million, and the overall playback exceeded 300 billion, not to mention other platforms.
Cat sucking can be said to have become the first serious thing in the Chinese.
Even in the 125 scientific questions jointly released by the well-known top academic journal "Science" and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2021, "Why do humans are so fascinated by cats" is listed, which is a big exaggeration!
But just like "just take a sip, almost all cat suckers common lie", China has 13 of the 40 or so species of wild cats on the earth, as the country with the largest number of cat species on the earth at the same time, how can Chinese suck cats!
In recent years, we have not only sucked all kinds of "beast" level big cats, but also put the little bit of "cat dignity" left in people's homes on the ground and rubbed it wildly:
Rabbit: Humans, are you polite?
To put it mildly, July 29 of each year is World Tiger Day.
Ah Xin pinched the timing and offered you a book just a few days after it was listed, and it was praised by everyone with a high praise of 9.3 points - "Chinese Big Cats: The Discovery and Protection Story of 13 Species of Wild Cats in China".
The world is too bad, it is better to suck the cat, suck the cat a big mouthful, and live to ninety-nine!
Next, please take a deep breath, the first bite of the day, let's start with our housekeeper cat, the Northeast Gold Gradient.
1. Northeast gold gradient? You're a brain axe!"
Siberian tiger, the largest cat in the extant feline family.
In the past, it relied on talent and strength, "the king of the mountains", "the king of the hundred beasts", "talking about the tiger's discoloration", all about it.
It's all kittens, so let the family kiss them!
Now, it's all about the face, and the cat is still cat-like.
As a national first-level protected "waste", the Siberian tiger has three treasures: long hair, short legs, and stickers.
If they are not careful, they can blow themselves to more than 500 pounds, and what about the king of the hundred beasts, he is not able to "weigh the big orange".
In addition, after evolution, the more rounded head and flashing eyes are similar to the characteristics of the baby's round face and round eyes, making human beings more addictive.
Although the tiger is a tiger's brain, as the ceiling of the appearance value in the Chinese big cat, the Siberian tiger has not escaped the spell of changing the value of the IQ after all.
It always seems that there is a silly and cute atmosphere:
As the largest surviving cat, they have four disproportionately small short legs and a rounded body shape, which makes people think of rua~ when they see it
Tigers are 95% genetically identical to domestic cats, which inevitably leads them to the same cute habits.
For example, the same will be because of catnip want to die:
Like to be touched on the head and then make a "grunting" sound:
Studies have shown that the frequency of this grunt is similar to the cry of a baby, and it has killed humans at the genetic level.
In addition, scientists have also found that grunting can effectively relieve tension, effectively hypnotize, and more miraculously help maintain our bone density. In outer space, astronauts have helped the patented "cat purr" on their feet to reduce the risk of bone atrophy.
Another trick that tigers can't resist is to eat hands:
For humans, like kittens, they treat us more like humanoid massagers, and when they want to, they directly expose their belly and wait for you to touch them:
Consciously or unconsciously, they will also roll in front of you, and in an instant, they can sprout nosebleeds from us two-legged beasts:
When they are tired of sleep, they will also raise their butts high and stretch out:
Figure: wiki
Get rid of the look of the cat next door to your house, and the cute value is directly full:
Calling it the "Northeast Golden Gradient" is not unjust at all.
2. Why did the Siberian tiger become the "only child" in the Chinese tiger family?
Available archaeological data show that tigers are most likely an indigenous species that originated in China.
And from a cultural point of view, Chinese and tigers seem to be closer to tigers than the relationship between ancient Egyptians and cats.
For example, until today's southwest ethnic minority areas, when "tiger" is used as a surname, it is pronounced as "māo", and in Yi, it is even more cute, directly pronounced "miao".
The ancient Chinese tiger, found in Shichi, Henan, is the most primitive of the known leopard species, dating back more than 2 million years, and may be a common ancient "distant relative" of the living big cat family lion, tiger, leopard and so on.
Fossil skull of ancient Chinese tiger, pictured: Institute of Ancient Spine, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Although tigers are millions of years old as a species, the common ancestor of modern tigers goes back less than 100,000 years, and the most recent spread of tigers is likely to have begun in southern China.
Since then, from the snow-capped forests of northeastern Asia, to the hot wetlands and high grasses of the South Asian subcontinent, to the 4,000-meter-high mountains of the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and even the humid and hot rainforests of Sumatra, tigers have gradually become the dominant big cats on the Asian continent.
The image of the tiger is very sacred, and has long been deeply rooted in the culture of Asian countries.
More than 6,000 years ago, the mussel sculpture dragon and tiger pattern at the site of Xishuipo in Puyang County, Henan Province, is known as "China's first dragon tiger".
Tigers once thrived in Asia, but today, few of these colorful big cats remain, and the population has plummeted from 100,000 100 100 years ago to about 4,500, reducing its area by about 93 percent compared to its historical range.
At present, the mainstream view is that the extant tiger is divided into 9 tiger subspecies, of which 3 are declared extinct: The Balinese Tiger (1937), the Caspian Tiger (1981), and the Javan Tiger (1988), and 4 of the remaining 6 are endangered.
China once had four subspecies of Siberian tiger (including Caspian tiger), South China tiger, Bengal tiger and Indochina tiger, which is the country with the largest number of tiger subspecies in the world, of which the South China tiger is a subspecies endemic to China.
The Caspian tiger in Xinjiang was basically extinct in the early 20th century, and the fate of the South China tiger is the most lamentable.
South China Tiger, photographed by Song Dazhao, picture "Chinese Big Cat"
Historically, the South China tiger was the most widely distributed tiger subspecies in China, from southern China to the entire central China region, and then to east China, south China and parts of southwest China.
Because these areas are also suitable for human agricultural development and habitation, the South China tiger has also become the most acutely contradictory beast with humans.
Beginning in the 1950s, the South China tiger was hunted as a pest and economic product.
According to publicly available reports, Hunan Province hunted 170 South China tigers from 1952 to 1953, Jiangxi Province killed 171 South China tigers from 1955 to 1964, and Fujian Province killed 334 South China tigers from 1955 to 1964.
In November 1986, a South China tiger was captured by a hunting trap in Anren County, Hunan Province, and this tiger became the last wild South China tiger ever seen by humans.
At present, more than 200 South China tigers live in captivity, and since they are the offspring of 6 wild-caught tigers, they face high inbreeding pressures and are difficult to revive into a promising healthy population.
As for the other tiger species...
In February 2009, an Indochinese tiger was illegally hunted at the China-Laos border in the Xishuangbanna Reserve in Yunnan, and there has been no reliable record of indistinguishable in Yunnan since then.
Indochinese tiger recorded in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, 2007, courtesy of Feng Limin, Photo: "Chinese Big Cat"
Since tigers in Laos and Vietnam, which border China, are also extinct, and the tigers in Myanmar do not border China, the possibility of natural spread of indochinese tigers into China is basically gone.
In 2019, researchers once again photographed Bengal tigers through infrared cameras in Metuo, according to which it was judged that there were indeed Bengal tigers living in southeast Tibet. Relying on the excellent habitat of the southern slopes of the Himalayas, the Bengal tiger may still have hopes of population revival in the southeastern Tibet-southern Tibet region.
Historically, siberian tigers were distributed in the three northeastern provinces of China and most of northeastern Inner Mongolia, and entered northern Hebei. After entering the 20th century, the population of Siberian tigers in China continued to shrink, and by the first few years of the 21st century, The Siberian tigers in China were on the verge of extinction.
A female Siberian tiger walking in the snow. Photo by Li Dongwei, Photo: "Chinese Big Cat"
In the vast Russian Far East adjacent to the northeast, the most important distribution area of the Siberian tiger, after decades of conservation management, the number of Russian Siberian tigers has exceeded 600, and these Siberian tigers have also begun to infiltrate or spread into China.
Tigers need a large number of prey and large areas of habitat for survival, and the protection of tigers means the comprehensive protection of the ecological environment. Although there are still considerable mountain forests in many parts of China, the tiger's main prey, such as sika deer, sambar deer and other large deer, is very scarce, which means that the tiger has no hope of returning to the wild.
Unlike the South China tiger, which has lost its homeland, the establishment of the Siberian Tiger and Leopard National Park in 2021 will allow the most complete forest ecosystem in northern Eurasia to become the home of the Siberian tiger.
Siberian tiger in Siberian Leopard National Park. Courtesy of Feng Limin, Photo: "Chinese Big Cat"
According to data released by the government in 2021, the number of wild Siberian tigers in China has reached 50, bringing hope for the revival of China's Siberian tiger population.
Overall, today, the tiger's range has retreated to the northeast and southwest borders, and only the siberian tigers in the northeast region have real hope of revival.
3. The fate of The Chinese big cats is a metaphor for human beings
2022, the Year of the Tiger.
However, the harsh truth is that tigers, and most wild cats, are still struggling to survive on this planet.
China was once a veritable "tiger country", but now, only the Siberian tiger is left.
According to incomplete statistics, from 2021 to the beginning of 2022, residents in Hunchun have encountered wild tigers more than 30 times, and related videos have repeatedly exploded.
While people lament that the ecological environment is getting better and better, behind it is the increasingly tense land-use contradiction between human tigers, which shows that the habitat needed for the recovery of the Siberian tiger population may still not be enough.
It is not only tigers who face the same fate.
According to different classification standards, there are 38 to 41 species of wild cats in the world, and China has 13 of them, which is one of the countries with the largest number of feline species in the world at the same time.
In addition to tigers, China also lives snow leopards, leopards, clouded leopards, lynx, golden cats, ocelots, fishing cats, rabbits, cloud cats, wild cats, desert cats, and jungle cats.
Pictured: Chinese Big Cat
Take the snow leopard, for example, China is a big country for snow leopards, and 60% of the world's snow leopard habitat is located in China.
But today, in the alpine mountain ecosystems where snow leopards live, overgrazing, mineral exploitation, road construction and other activities continue to encroach on their habitat.
Snow leopard mothers raise their cubs independently. Photo courtesy of Shanshui Nature Conservation Center, Photo: "Chinese Big Cat"
Global climate change is exacerbating the threat of habitat loss: rising temperatures will push forest lines toward mountain tops, further compressing snow leopard habitats, while snow leopard distribution areas such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are heating up twice as fast as the average in the Northern Hemisphere.
As "China's most endangered big cat", the situation of the clouded leopard is even less optimistic.
In the past, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Fujian, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Yunnan and other provinces were the main producers of clouded leopards.
Clouded leopard, pictured: "Chinese Big Cat"
Ironically, this conclusion comes mostly from fur acquisition records: in the 1950s and 1960s, Guizhou could purchase 100 to 200 clouded leopard skins per year, and in the 1960s and 1970s, Jiangxi, Fujian, Hubei, Hunan and other provinces caught more than 100 clouded leopard skins per year, and Sichuan, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other provinces could purchase dozens of clouded leopard skins every year.
These bloody figures accompanied the clouded leopard's total retreat in China. The clouded leopard has now retreated to border areas such as Yunnan and Tibet, and is only one step away from complete extinction in China.
The distribution of ocelots in China is extremely widespread, and it has "turned" the world with the departure of the rusty spotted ocelot in the documentary "Big Cat".
However, it was this enthusiasm that brought disaster to them – the first reaction many expressed their love was to raise them and "pick them up", so that a large number of wild cats were captured, bred and sold as pets, putting wild populations under great threat.
Ocelots that prey on at night. Photo by Huang Yaohua, Photo: "Chinese Big Cat"
In China, ocelots were hunted for fur acquisitions, and until the mid-1980s, the annual purchase volume of ocelots in China remained at 150,000 to 200,000 pieces, and over-hunting led to the complete disappearance of ocelots in many parts of southern and eastern China today.
As one of the two carnivores endemic to China, the desert cat receives far less attention than the other, the bamboo-eating giant panda, and the desert cat is listed as a vulnerable species by the IUCN.
The desert cat is an independent cat living in the eastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China, and is the smallest in terms of distribution area.
The desert cat has beautiful blue eyes and eye-catching tufts of ear tips. Photo by Shouzi, Photo: "Chinese Big Cat"
The main threat comes from human activities: grazing and grassland rat extermination may lead to a decrease in the quality of the habitat of desert cats and may cause them to be secondarily poisoned; More and more roads lead to a large number of desert cats being killed every year. Another potentially serious threat comes from the growing number of domestic cats in the desert cat range.
At present, the most important distribution centers of cats in China have shrunk to the less populous southwest mountains, and the less populous Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas.
Since the launch of the natural forest protection project and the project of returning farmland to forest around 1998, the forests in most parts of China have been gradually restored without being cut down and reclaimed.
The good news is that this year, the Bengal tiger has appeared in Meto several more times, giving hope that after more than 10 years of protection of forests and wildlife by local governments and residents, the Bengal tiger may really come back and gradually establish a stable population.
In the next Year of the Tiger, we may be able to expect more good news about China's big cats...
In the cat sucking kingdom, if you don't have a cat yet, then Ah Xin can only send you a blessing: believe in yourself, cat, there will be!