The beasts in other places are different. After the arrival of mankind, no preventive measures were taken against us, and as a result, we eliminated them.
Among the famous beasts in Africa, there is no tiger, and tigers belong to cats like lions and cheetahs in Africa. They have the same ancestor, and now it is generally believed that this ancestor came from Africa.
Then the question is, why didn't the tiger from Africa stay in Africa in the end?
The origin of the tiger: never return to Africa.
About 2 million years ago, a branch of cats moved eastward to Asia, and then those cats evolved into animals with orange, black and white stripes as we know them today.
It is worth noting that the stripes of tigers are just like our fingerprints, and no tiger is the same.
Tigers live in most parts of Asia, and over time, various tiger subspecies will naturally migrate and spread. However, the Pleistocene glacier fluctuations and geographical boundaries may make it difficult for tigers to return to Africa.
Tigers are the largest cats, which can grow to 4 meters and 300 kilograms in the wild, but no matter how strong they are, they can't adapt to the environment in Africa.
As we all know, the tiger is the king of the jungle. They live in jungles, swamps and mountains. With their agility (cats are very agile), they can even live in the rain forest, but all these places have one thing in common, that is, there are many trees.
Tigers are masters who fight alone. They don't run as fast as cheetahs, so they often ambush players. Trees give them hidden conditions.
With the arrival of the last ice age, Africa has rapidly grassland, leaving only a few scattered trees, which is very unfavorable for tigers to hunt, so they can't go back.
Of course, this is just a convincing guess. So far, no one knows why the tiger has not returned to Africa.
It is conceivable that tigers are strong, although they don't flock like lions or have the speed of cheetahs. If they do return to Africa, it may not be as bad as imagined, and it may even become an invasive species and sweep across Africa.
Someone really tried to bring the South China Tiger from China to Africa, but the purpose was not to introduce species, but to train the South China Tiger to hunt and help them return to nature.
South China tiger in Africa
South China tiger is one of the oldest tiger species in the world and one of the most endangered species. It is unique to China. They used to be numerous, but now they are considered to be completely extinct in the wild.
All the existing South China tigers are descendants of six wild South China tigers captured in 1950s and 1960s.
Due to the lack of genetic diversity in this inbreeding, there are serious health problems in captive South China tigers. Perhaps there are wild South China tigers in the wild, so it is particularly important to release these captive tigers into the wild.
But the fact is that these South China tigers who grew up in the zoo have no hunting skills and are even afraid of live prey. Well, it is said that they are even afraid of the opposite sex.
It is absolutely impossible for them to return to the wild in this state, so it is necessary to do some basic training for regression. This is the origin of the South China Tiger in Africa.
In 2002, Li Quan, an American from Beijing, and her husband launched the "Save China Tiger International Foundation" and sent two South China tiger cubs (a male and a female) to Africa. The two South China tigers were named "Guotai" (female) and "Hope" (male), respectively, to make some training preparations for returning to the wild.
Africa is chosen because the land here is relatively cheap and the prey that can be used to train tigers is relatively easy to buy.
Li Quan bought 17 closed sheep farms in South Africa and established Tiger Valley Nature Reserve, where Cathay Pacific and Hope settled down.
Of course, this behavior of attracting tigers indoors has been opposed by many local people because they are worried that exotic tigers will have a negative impact on biodiversity in South Africa, but this has not stopped tigers from entering Africa.
The training of returning to the wild should be successful, but it is not smooth sailing. One of the first two tigers, Hope, died of illness.
In order to continue the South China tiger population in Africa, two cubs were sent there, Madonna (female) and Tiger Woods (male).
In 2007, when these two groups of tigers grew up, they sent an adult tiger "327" (male). 327 grew up in Suzhou Zoo, and he probably had average hunting skills, so he also died in a hunting activity.
At this point, China always sent five South China tigers in the past. Except for two dead tigers, the other tigers did breed many offspring in South Africa. The data I can find is more than 30, but some cubs died unsupervised.
However, returning to the wild after the "wild" in China has never been realized, which is said to be because there is really no nature reserve suitable for releasing South China tigers.
Now the popularity of South China Tiger in Tiger Valley is gone. It is said that these tigers are not doing well in the nature reserve now. Due to the divorce dispute between Li Quan and her husband, the nature reserve is basically neglected.
As I said before, the local people are opposed to the introduction of this exotic species, so the life of the South China tiger is not satisfactory. It is said that some of them have been euthanized (maybe it's just hearsay, the information of Tiger Valley basically stops at 20 13, and the information of Li Quan on 20 15 is basically hard to find).
finally
Tiger Valley Nature Reserve has always welcomed tourists, and their banner is of course to go to Africa to see tigers, so I think this introduction itself has commercial considerations, and it is inevitable that problems will arise later.
It's just that we did discuss matters related to returning to China, and we really couldn't find a place suitable for the survival of wild South China tigers.