Re-introduction of South China tigers ?
Inserting Captive-Bred Tigers Into the Wild: Will it Work? – News Watch
Inserting Captive-Bred Tigers Into the Wild: Will it Work? – News Watch
Re-introduction of South China tigers ?
- Thread starter vogelcommando
- Start date
One cannot reintroduce the already extinct 
One cannot reintroduce the already extinct
What do you mean by already extinct? Aren't they just extinct in the wild with some in captivity? Many species, as I am sure you know have been re released into the wild after become extinct in the wild. Exp. California condor
None of the animals in captivity are actually true South China tigers - they are hybrids of South China and Indochinese, and heavily inbred ones at that.
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
You should tell National Geographic that then. Their article does not suggest or support your statement, does it?
They aren't exactly going to be shouting about the impurity of the stock, are they?
Panthera tigris ssp. amoyensis (South China Tiger)
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
They aren't exactly going to be shouting about the impurity of the stock, are they?
Panthera tigris ssp. amoyensis (South China Tiger)
At the very least, I would expect Nat Geo to be factual and not intentionally omit reference to hybridisation. I refer to this paragraph:
"Five South China tigers were taken from Shanghai Zoo to a converted South African sheep farm where they could be “re-wilded.” Within a few years one of the refugee tigers named Tiger Woods was fathering babies born, perhaps for the first time in decades, in at least a semi-wild condition. There are now 18 South China tigers in South Africa, giving hope that this animal may thrive once more. “We’ve gone from around 50 to 110 since 2002,” says Nilson. “It’s safe to say its the only subspecies that has doubled, which makes a major contribution to the global aim of doubling the population by 2022,” he adds."
Is the "18 South China tigers in South Africa" statement inaccurate?
No that is correct. They have done much better than was actually expected from what was effectively an untried experiment. They have bred from four founders(2.2) after an inauspicious start when the very first male died before they could breed. One of the two founder males has now died also but they have continued to breed them by crossing the least related animals etc. After an initial skew toward male births, it has been compensated by more females recently so that the sex ratio is now roughly equal. There is a family tree you can find of the breeding though I can't give you a reliable link.
It would certainly be interesting to learn how Nat Geo would describe the captive populations of "Barbary" Lions, considering the fact they are in the same boat in terms of being thoroughly hybridised but claimed to be pure by the collections holding them
It would certainly be interesting to learn how Nat Geo would describe the captive populations of "Barbary" Lions, considering the fact they are in the same boat in terms of being thoroughly hybridised but claimed to be pure by the collections holding them
I think it would depend on the style of the story and that Nat Geo would take the story at face value, depending on the source of the information they were supplied with. If it was simply about reintroduction of e.g. 'Barbary' Lions or 'South China' tigers, they would just report it as that, probably making no reference to possible impurity. But if their sources included information about possible hybridisation of same, that would be different of course.I think they wouldn't omit that deliberately but it would largely depend on the individual writer/editor and the particular angle they wanted to highlight.('Horses for courses' type of thing)
But I don't think they would research/delve into such issues themselves off their own bat though.
Not a South China tiger but a ( three-legged ) Sumatran tiger going to be released back into the wild ( ?!? ) :
Three-legged tiger to be released into wild
Three-legged tiger to be released into wild
Since these tigers are all we have, I am for reintroduction. Hybrid South China tigers are better than no tigers at all.
Article about if it is possible at all to re-introduce South China tigers into the wild at all.... :
Can captive South China tigers return to the wild?
Can captive South China tigers return to the wild?
toothlessjaws
Well-Known Member
A pretty clunky written and poorly researched article with nothing much to say IMO!
Interesting reading the above, older comments about all concern for hybrids. Personally I could never understand how mainland tigers that would have had a continuous distribution historically can be classed as subspecies. I could never for the life of me spot the difference between much of the extant mainland "subspecies" bar the obvious Siberians which can be explained by a cline. Of course studies suggesting just this taxonomy are now beginning to be accepted....
Theres a National Geographic article online stating that scientists have after a study of the DNA of the Siberian tiger and the Caspian tiger are one and the same!
The winner of 2020 Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Natural History Museum London) is a trail cam photo of a Siberian tiger. In the writeup about it, the author states Siberian tigers and Bengal tigers are now considered the same race.
Of course, as I have noted elsewhere on the forum the lumping of Siberian and all other mainland tigers into a single subspecies seems to be based on very shaky ground, and strikes many as a politically-based move - to wit, the Sumatran and its extinct neighbours are known to be more distant kin to all mainland tigers than all mainland tigers are to one another, but this means that if one was to recognise Siberian populations as a distinct subspecies the Sunda races would have to be split into a distinct species. Having two Critically Endangered species looks worse than a single Endangered species, so......
The fact that the IUCN study lumping Siberian into all other mainland races twists itself into knots to basically go "these aren't genetically or morphologically distinct enough in our opinion to merit even subspecific level, but at the same time we want conservation organisations to continue protecting them as a distinct thing from all other mainland tigers and act as if we haven't lumped them" is telling, methinks
There have been subsequent studies backing up the original subspecific model, incidentally.
This lump - which took place before the aforementioned IUCN study - is definitely on solid ground however. It appears that until the 19th century the Caspian and Siberian tiger populations formed a single continuous range from the Caucasus and Middle East, through Central Asia into Siberia and the Russian Far East. However, the extant Siberian does *not* form a genetic or morphological cline with the mainland tiger populations to the south - even before the tiger was extirpated from much of China there seems to have always been a stark morphological difference between the two populations rather than a gradual introgression, and genetic interflow between Siberian and South Chinese (the nearest subspecies geographically) appears to have been very limited even when their ranges were closer.
toothlessjaws
Well-Known Member
@TeaLovingDave I'd love to read your sources if you care to provide a few links.
For a start (it's a bit late to be trawling literature on my side of the world) there is the following 2018 study regarding the genetic distinctiveness of multiple mainland clades:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(18)31214-4
...and here is a 2009 study demonstrating that the Caspian/Amur Tiger had a single continuous range until the 19th century (and also mentioning in the opening abstract that it appears the ancestors of this population entered Central Asia first and *then* moved eastwards throughout Siberia, rather than moving directly north through the range of the South China Tiger) and that therefore these two were the same subspecies.
Mitochondrial Phylogeography Illuminates the Origin of the Extinct Caspian Tiger and Its Relationship to the Amur Tiger
For another example of the IUCN sometimes keeping species lumped together when the subject of a split would instantly be classified as Critically Endangered, see the fact they don't recognise Forest Elephant as a distinct species and it is somewhat unclear whether they even recognise it as a subspecies.
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(18)31214-4
...and here is a 2009 study demonstrating that the Caspian/Amur Tiger had a single continuous range until the 19th century (and also mentioning in the opening abstract that it appears the ancestors of this population entered Central Asia first and *then* moved eastwards throughout Siberia, rather than moving directly north through the range of the South China Tiger) and that therefore these two were the same subspecies.
Mitochondrial Phylogeography Illuminates the Origin of the Extinct Caspian Tiger and Its Relationship to the Amur Tiger
For another example of the IUCN sometimes keeping species lumped together when the subject of a split would instantly be classified as Critically Endangered, see the fact they don't recognise Forest Elephant as a distinct species
and it is somewhat unclear whether they even recognise it as a subspecies.toothlessjaws
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the late night trawling @TeaLovingDave, I'll give this a read over.
I'd already read about the Caspian/Siberian study.
I am know I have absolutely zero expertise here, but before reading I will reiterate my current opinion nonetheless:
I just can't understand how all these tigers can be valid subspecies when historically all of Southern Asia was pretty much continuous tiger habitat.
I suspect scientists are seeing genetic "uniqueness" in select populations that is actually a product of what is often historically-induced human-caused isolation and inbreeding rather than an indication of naturally occurring evolution of subspecies.
I think if we could go back in time and capture a now-extinct wild tiger from Wuhan you'd find it was a pretty good intermediate between an Indochinese and Siberian tiger.
I'd already read about the Caspian/Siberian study.
I am know I have absolutely zero expertise here, but before reading I will reiterate my current opinion nonetheless:
I just can't understand how all these tigers can be valid subspecies when historically all of Southern Asia was pretty much continuous tiger habitat.
I suspect scientists are seeing genetic "uniqueness" in select populations that is actually a product of what is often historically-induced human-caused isolation and inbreeding rather than an indication of naturally occurring evolution of subspecies.
I think if we could go back in time and capture a now-extinct wild tiger from Wuhan you'd find it was a pretty good intermediate between an Indochinese and Siberian tiger.