In 2007, a farmer in Shaanxi, Zhou Zhenglong, claimed that he had photographed a wild South China tiger, and as soon as the news came out, it exploded in an instant, and it should be known that the wild tiger in South China was listed as a endangered species in 1989.
Photo: Zhou Zhenglong
Nowadays, ordinary people want to see the tiger side, and they can only go to the zoo.
"Tiger Wai Village" sounds like a story now, but do you believe that in Hunan in the 1950s, such a thing really happened?
So what exactly caused tigers to encircle the village? What did Tiger do after the siege of the village?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > human-tiger conflict</h1>
In the 1950s, the agrarian revolution was in full swing, and peasants began to own their own land.
However, there are many people and little land, and in order to solve the problem of food and clothing for the people, the Hunan government has begun to carry out large-scale reclamation of the wilderness ridges.
The land of human beings has increased, but the space of many wild animals has been compressed, and they can only compete with humans for living space.
As a result, those mountain cattle, wild boars, etc., which have no place to live, intrude into the newly reclaimed farmland and destroy the crops, resulting in many farmlands being harvested.
Since livestock are scourge the fields, get rid of them!
So under the call of the local government, many hunters have gone up the mountain to hunt, and the government has rewards for successful hunting, and for a time, the people's enthusiasm for hunting is high.
Figure Land reform
Soon, the forest food chain is out of balance, the land is occupied, small carnivores are hunted and killed, and the South China tigers at the top of the food chain have no food source and can only go out of the mountains in search of food.
However, at that time, the hunting policy was so vigorous that the hunters almost killed the wild boars and mountain cattle that destroyed the crops.
Since 1952, Hunan has begun to erupt in a large-scale disaster of hungry tigers, and even Changsha City has been threatened by tiger groups, and it is conceivable that humans have forced the South China tigers into a situation.
In the 1956 Hunan Daily, a quarter of the pages were covered with five stories about hungry tigers hurting people.
Pictured: Hungry Tiger Hurts People Time
According to Hunan local statistics, in just 10 years, nearly 2,000 Hunan people have died tragically, including one day that tigers have eaten 32 people in a row, and countless domestic animals have been bitten to death.
For a time, the people of Hunan called the tiger a "four-legged bandit" and suffered greatly.
A man-tiger war inevitably broke out!
The people of Hunan, who were deeply attacked by hungry tigers, began to set up "tiger fighting teams" to carry out tiger hunting operations and commend "tiger fighting heroes".
Pictured: Playing tigers
Among them, there is a hunting master named Zhong Yongtai, whose hunting record is to catch 11 South China tigers alive and kill more than 40,000 wild boars, mountain cattle and other wild animals. He alone hunted more than half of the total Yanling.
There is also a tiger hunting master called Chen Changkui, Chen Changkui has followed his father to hunt for a living since he was a child, in 1953, the 33-year-old Chen Changkui with a pair of crossbows, coupled with ancestral hunting secrets, once hunted 12 tigers in one go.
He also witnessed the spectacular scene of a group of tigers descending the mountain.
Chen Changkui remembers most that he once hunted a 150-kilogram Tiger King in the Yanling area, and later he pulled out one of the Tiger King's teeth about 5 centimeters long to commemorate it.
Pictured: Fighting Tiger Heroes
Whenever the old man talked about the fierce tiger hunting years, he felt that his body was full of strength.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="94" > hunt the Tiger King</h1>
Chen Qifang in Leiyang is known as the local "Tiger King".
Speaking of the hunter Chen Qifang in the local area, almost everyone knows, but he is not specialized in tiger hunting, when he was 64 years old, because his family experienced a tragic event, the old man was extremely angry and decided to kill the tiger
In the late autumn of 1952, Chen Qifang's 14-year-old grandson was digging vegetables in his own field, but until dark, the grandson did not return, so the family rushed to the field to look for, but only found one of his grandson's shoes, the blood on the ground was unbearable, and there were some disorganized animal footprints.
Chen Qifang concluded that sun tzu had died at the mouth of the tiger, so he swore that he would not give up until the tiger was chased!
Photo: Gao Zhanjie, "Hundred Tigers"
Since then, Chen Qifang and her two sons have entered the deep mountains of Leiyang, and the three fathers and sons have begun a three-year-long pursuit of dense forests.
In just one year, Chen Qifang hunted and killed more than 40 tigers, known as the "Tiger Fighting King" by the common people, and many hunters in the vicinity also came to visit, and also set up a tiger fighting team.
As the captain, Chen Qifang divided the tiger fighting team of more than 50 people into 6 teams, hunted tigers in the deep mountains around Leiyang, and also developed many hunting tools.
Pictured: Hunting tools
One day, some people said that in the deep mountains on the other side of Shaoshan Mountain, there was a tiger king weighing 300 kilograms, and no one could destroy it.
Chen Qifang personally led the team out of the horse, and after several days of tracking, finally discovered the whereabouts of this tiger king.
Chen Qifang followed the tiger trail to lay the trap, smeared his special poison on the arrow and arranged it in the trap, Chen Qifang led people to ambush around the trap, waiting for the Tiger King to fall.
With a roar, Chen Qifang and the others knew that the tiger had fallen into the trap, about an hour or so, the tiger roared and stopped, Chen Qifang touched it to check, only to see a large tiger weighing more than 200 kilograms and more than 200 kilograms long and long, and the team members all admired Chen Qifang.
At the end of 1957, Chen Qifang was also invited to Beijing, and Premier Zhou personally received the "Fighting Tiger King".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="98" > Baihuwei Village</h1>
One day in September 1957, a salesman named Xie Yaozong came to a village at the foot of Xuefeng Mountain in Gaoping Village, Hunan Province, and did not expect that as soon as he entered the village, a big event occurred in the village.
There were people in the village banging gongs, some people were screaming desperately, there were cows running on the road, the dogs kept barking, the village was in chaos, Xie Yaozong had seen this battle, he wanted to go forward with a vigor, wanted to go out to see what the situation was.
Fortunately, he was pulled back by the villagers in the house, and the villagers told him: "It is the big worm that has come down the mountain!" ”
The big worm refers to the local wild South China tiger.
Pictured: Tiger descending the mountain
After a while, the village was surrounded by a large number of tigers, and when night fell, the villagers slowly discovered that there were not hundreds but eighty tigers gathered at this time.
Strange to say, these tigers did not attack, but only guarded the mouth of the village, and these tigers stood guard at the mouth of the village for three days and three nights.
"Whoever caught the little tiger cub, let it go, I'm afraid there's a tiger king here!" The older man in the village suddenly thought of this.
So a villager released the little tiger he had caught earlier, and when the little tiger cub returned to the team, he heard only a tiger roar, and the tigers rushed into the village madly, ransacked all the livestock, and took away a little girl who walked out of the house.
The tiger killed all the villagers' livestock, and then "swung wildly" into the mountains and forests and disappeared without a shadow.
The villagers looked at the livestock that had been bitten to death at home, very angry, but helpless, this terrible "Hundred Tigers Surrounding The Village" has become a nightmare in the hearts of many villagers.
After many years have passed, many people have expressed doubts about the authenticity of the "Baihuwei Village" incident, but in any case, the deeds of the "Baihuwei Village" have been handed down in Hunan.
Whether it is a real event or a human fabrication, the meaning behind it is actually more worthy of human reflection.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="102" > save the South China Tiger</h1>
According to incomplete statistics, from 1952 onwards, a total of 647 South China tigers were hunted in Hunan during the 10 years.
After 1963, there was no more news of tigers injuring people in Hunan.
In 1989, the South China tiger was listed as one of the top ten endangered animals in China, becoming a national first-class protected animal.
The South China tiger is a tiger species endemic to China, so it is also known as the "Chinese tiger".
In the 21st century, the State Forestry Administration mobilized a large-scale search for wild South China tigers across the country, but did not find a single wild South China tiger.
Therefore, in recent years, many experts believe that the South China tiger has basically disappeared in the wild in China.
In addition to the large-scale hunting of South China tigers in that year, there is a more lethal reason, south China tigers generally live about 20 years, if they can not find a suitable mate, then they can not reproduce. Only a few South China tigers can't meet each other, and after more than 20 years, their life expectancy has come to an end.
In order to save the South China tiger, China has also taken a series of related measures, such as artificial breeding, and now we can see the south China tiger in the zoo.
Pictured: Captive South China tiger
But whether a species is viable or not, it must be possible to see a vibrant species in the wild. It cannot be seen in the wild, and even if it is in a zoo, it can only be regarded as extinct.
On April 23, 2021, a wild Siberian tiger injured people in Jixi City, Heilongjiang, and the local Forestry Bureau named the wild Siberian tiger "Wandashan No. 1" and successfully released it into nature.
Pictured: Siberian tiger hiding in a haystack
At present, the largest number of wild tiger species in China is the Siberian tiger, there are about 27 in the territory, and there are still more in number.
In fact, whether it is a South China tiger or a Northeast Tiger, it shows a problem: the harmonious coexistence of man and nature is the road to sustainable development!