After being imprisoned for more than 20 days, the injurious tiger "Guandashan No. 1" in Heilongjiang Province was finally released into the wild.
Obviously, the tigers have hurt people, so why should we let the tigers return to the mountains? Wouldn't this tiger wildly become a greater scourge? Will it hurt people in the future?
"Wandashan No. 1" crept back into the wild
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" >What is a wild release success? </h1>
Many people are worried about whether the "Wandashan No. 1" wild release can be successful.
So, what is the success of wild release?
The so-called wild release success is the peace of both people and tigers. In order for the tiger to live normally in the wild, it must not be allowed to enter the village to attack people or domestic animals.
Before discussing whether our own tigers can be successfully released, let's first look at the experience and lessons of tiger wild release in other countries.
The Russian female tiger Sanda is wild
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > two wild releases in South Asia: man-eating tigers were released</h1>
In the 1970s, in South Asia, people tried two wild tigers, but both failed, and the tiger did not become a wild tiger, but became a man-eating tiger, and innocent villagers paid a terrible price for it.
1. The first wild release occurred in Dudwa National Park in India.
Conservationist Billy Singer adopted a baby female tiger from a British zoo and named it "Tara".
Singh raised Tara from an early age and fed it personally, so Tara is very close.
Singh, with a heart for returning wildlife to nature, decided to release Tara into Dudva Park.
This release creates a big problem. Tara has been accustomed to human feeding since childhood, does not know how to survive in the wild, has no ability to hunt, and like a child, when she is hungry, she goes to the village to find human food.
Of course, the villagers didn't want to feed it, so Tara took it herself, and it lived around the village, killing livestock for a living.
Later, Tara discovered that humans were an easier target to capture than domestic animals, killing the first person on March 2, 1978, and killing 24 people in a row.
The appearance of the man-eating tiger has caused panic in the local area, scaring the surrounding villagers from going out. As a result, the local government organized the encirclement and suppression of man-eating tigers, and Singer joined the hunting team.
Although Singer has always denied that the man-eating tiger is Tara, the local government has evidence that this man-eating tiger is Tara.
Eventually, Tara was killed and peace returned to the area.
Singh wild tigers was originally kind, and he had released several leopards in the wild before, which had achieved some success. But he didn't notice the difference between a leopard and a tiger.
First of all, the leopard can survive on small prey for a long time, but the tiger cannot, and it can only eat people or domestic animals if it cannot catch large prey.
Second, tigers are larger and more deadly than leopards, and leopards have difficulty killing people, while tigers kill individuals easily.
Therefore, Singh's tiger wild release ended in tragedy.
2) Almost at the same time, Nepal also made a failed wild release.
The staff of Chitwan Park rescued a young male tiger, which was lame on one leg during a fight with another prime-aged male tiger.
The staff bandaged the wound and put it straight into the field. But this tiger was injured and could not survive in the wild, so it chose to hunt less difficult livestock, and it began to frequently enter the village and kill domestic animals, and the strangeness with people gradually disappeared.
Finally, one day, tragedy inevitably struck, and the tiger threw himself and bit him to death as a young teacher went down to the river to bathe as usual.
Since this tiger had not yet become a man-eating tiger and was not used to eating human flesh, it just bit people to death, did not eat, and fled on its own.
For a time, the people in the surrounding villages were panicked, and no one knew whether they would become the next tiger's mouth.
Fortunately, when the staff rescued it before, they put a radio collar on the tiger, so it was easy to locate it, and a needle of anesthesia gun put it down.
The man-eating tiger, which has not yet grown up, was sentenced to "life imprisonment" and will spend the rest of its life in a zoo.
These two failed wild releases in South Asia have given us three lessons.
First, the most important point of tiger wild release is to let tigers learn to stay away from humans and avoid tigers associating humans with food. Otherwise, when the tiger is hungry, it will find someone to eat, so it is easy to develop into hunting livestock and then hurting people.
Second, injured tigers are not suitable for wild release, because they do not have the ability to survive in the wild, and it is only a matter of time before they enter the village and hurt people.
Third, the wild tiger should be closely monitored, and it is best to wear a radio collar to facilitate the re-finding of it. If it is found that it frequently enters the village and approaches humans, it must be caught back to the zoo in time to prevent the occurrence of tiger injuries.
The Russian female tiger Sanda returns to nature
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > successful wilding in Russia</h1>
After reading the above two negative textbooks, let's look at a positive example and learn from the successful experience.
Russia's tiger wild release work has fully absorbed the three lessons of South Asia and has been very successful.
In the wild, some orphaned tiger cubs will accidentally lose their mothers and will not survive in the wild.
The Russians came up with a way to artificially rescue them, raise them and release them into the mountains.
The Russians first enclosed a plot deep in the forest and herded the tiger cubs inside, so that the tiger cubs could grow up in a pristine environment from an early age.
Then, when the young tigers are about one year old, they begin to provide live prey, leaving them to grope in the fence to learn to hunt.
Tiger cubs rescued by the Russians
Although no tigress taught hunting techniques, the hunting nature engraved in the genes of tiger cubs also made them stumble into hunting masters.
When the tiger has mastered the hunting skills, the fence is removed and the tiger returns to the forest in situ.
Throughout the rewilding process, humans are only responsible for providing places, secretly observing, not directly involved in hunting training, and young tigers do not associate food with humans.
From 2013 to 2018, the Russians rescued and released a total of 6 tiger cubs, 5 of which were completely successful, they can be skilled in hunting in the wild, and they have all had children.
Male Tiger Thunder: Descendants of wild tigers
Only 1 has seen multiple cases of entering the village to hunt livestock. But because the Russians put a collar on each tiger and kept a close watch on it, after finding it in the village many times, they arrested it in the zoo in time, and there was no case of tiger injuries.
Russia's wild release can be said to be quite successful, these wild tigers have multiplied and grown, and now they have formed a stable small population composed of more than a dozen individuals, and some male tigers have crossed the Heilongjiang River from time to time to visit our country.
In 2020, the male tiger "Thunder", which hunted and killed black bears in China's TaipingGou, is the son of the male tiger " Boris " , which was released by Russian President Putin himself. Therefore, some people joke that the Russians released tigers and killed Chinese bears.
Putin is involved in the release of tigers
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="04" > why was it released to "Wandashan No. 1"? </h1>
So, can China's "Wandashan No. 1" wild release be successful? In my opinion, the problem is not big.
First of all, "Wandashan No. 1" itself is a wild tiger, not a captive tiger born in a zoo, and the situation is similar to that of the Wild Release in Russia.
Moreover, it is relatively old, almost 3 years old, close to adulthood, has long been proficient in hunting skills, has a very strong body, and has a strong ability to survive in the wild. Therefore, its wild operation should be easier than that of the Orphan Tiger Cubs in Russia.
Secondly, judging from the performance of "Wandashan No. 1" in the village, it is still very afraid of humans. Although it hurt people, it was not deliberately attacking people, but because it was watched by too many people and was frightened, which was passionately hurtful.
Putin's wild tiger "Boris"
Moreover, it just threw people down, fled on its own, did not kill people, and acted quite restrained.
According to past experience, a tiger that hurts people in this case does not become a man-eating tiger that habitually attacks people. As long as it returns to its homeland, the primeval forest, it will not hurt people in the village again.
The only problem is the various disturbances in the rescue process of the Siberian Tiger Forest Park. When Tiger Forest Garden was anesthetized and caught, it was frightened because of irregular operation, and then it was locked in the cage and fed to chicken, without letting it recover in a pure natural environment.
Hopefully, after the return of "Wandashan No. 1" to nature, this unpleasant experience will not have a great impact on it.
All in all, the wild survivability of "Wandashan No. 1" is relatively strong, the possibility of hurting people again is very low, and the probability of success in wild release is very large.
"Wandashan No. 1" returns to nature
Considering that there are only 600 Siberian tigers left in the wild world, each one is so precious, it should be "wild and wild as possible". Therefore, our Government has made the wise decision to "let the tiger go back to the mountain."
The release of "Wandashan No. 1" into the wild is the first tiger release work carried out in China, which shows the world China's determination to protect this endangered species of tiger and restore the ecological environment, which is of great significance.
Let's wish "Wandasan No. 1" good luck!