In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, three cubs are seen near their mother at the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. The breeding centre was set up in 1986 with just eight tigers, but it now has 750.
Credit: AFP/XINHUA
BEIJING: Eighty-four Siberian tigers, one of the world's top ten rarest animals, have been born since March at a northeastern China breeding centre.
Liu Dan, an official with the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Centre in the suburbs of Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, was quoted by Chinese state Xinhua News Agency as saying the cubs were doing well.
Rarest tiger
He said 13 more pregnant Siberian tigers were expected to give birth to a total of another 20 to 30 cubs by October.
Fewer than 400 Siberian tigers - also known as Amur, Manchurian or Ussuri tiger - are believed to survive in the wild, about 20 of them in China and the rest in Russia.
They are the largest tiger subspecies, weighing up to 270 kilograms. Human settlements have encroached on the cats' habitat, and they also are in danger from poachers who want hides and bones for traditional Chinese medicine.
The breeding centre was set up in 1986 with just eight tigers, but it now has 750. Liu said it will train some of the cubs for life in the wild and plans to release over 600 of them in the future.
Tiger farming rebuke
In other tiger news, China was dealt a stinging rebuke by the international community last week in the form of a resolution criticizing large-scale tiger farming, and stating that "tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives."
While not singled out by name at a meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – which ended in the Netherlands last week – China is the only country in the world to breed the big cats (of the non-Siberian subspecies) on a commercial scale.
They are bred for use in traditional medicinal remedies, with some 5000 tigers on large farms in the northeast and southwest. For example, the tigers' tail mixed into an ointment is said to be able to treat skin cancer, and the tigers penis is purported to be an aphrodisiac.
There are only half as many tigers in total in the wild around the globe. Beijing voluntarily imposed a domestic ban on sale of tiger parts, but said coming into the wildlife convention that it was evaluating petitions from domestic businesses to allow the in-country sale of tiger-bone tonics.
