Nearly 40 one-year-old tiger cubs from China's largest Siberian
tiger breeding base in China's northernmost Heilongjiang
Province have been released into the wild in a bid to beef up
their ferocity.
It is the first time for the Northeast China Tiger Park to set
free such young tiger cubs into an area of approximately 400,000
square meters in the natural environment in all weathers, said Liu
Dan, chief engineer of the breeding base, on Saturday.
"We hope the cubs can learn to live by themselves in the natural
habitat through the training. After all, the artificial feeding for
so long has weakened their preying capability to some extent," said
Liu.
The Siberian tiger, the largest of all tigers, is among the
world's 10 most endangered species, with less than 400 living at
large, mostly in Russia's far east. Fewer than 10 Siberian tigers
are now believed to survive in the wild in China's northeast.
Founded in 1986, the base has bred more than 520 Siberian
tigers, a vast improvement from the situation some two decades ago
when there were only eight.
Liu said the base will have more young tiger cubs to take part
in the training and their living area will also be enlarged.
(Xinhua News Agency October 29, 2005)