Putin tigers to help Chinese initiative

Two Siberian tigers that wandered into China after being released by Russian President Vladimir Putin will help China's own captive animal program.

"Regardless of whether the two cats eventually settle in China, they have already helped our program to prepare tigers raised in captivity for a life in the wild," said Zhang Minghai, vice director of the Feline Research Center affiliated to the State Bureau of Forestry.

About two years ago, Russian experts rescued five tiger cubs. Putin released three of them in early summer this year. In October, two of them, Kuzya and Ustin, were found, thanks to their tracking devices, to have made their way to China.

Since this discovery, Chinese and Russian experts have been monitoring the two big cats, which are said to be "safe and sound" in their new adopted country. Russian experts said the two might spend the winter in China.

"There are only a handful of Siberian tigers living in the wild. So, it's a rare opportunity for us to study how they will survive in their new environment," said Zhang.

"Plus, the experience has helped us to identify suitable habitats for our bred in captivity tigers," he said.

It is estimated that worldwide there are only 600 Siberian tigers left in the wild, less than 30 of those are in China.

Since the 1980s, China has channelled millions of dollars to save the rare cat from extinction, such as a breeding center in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province, which neighbors Russia.

Despite its remarkable success of breeding more than 1,000 tigers from its original eight, the center is concerned that these "products of science" will fail to cope in the wild.

"For example, tiger cubs are sometimes fed live chickens. Yet, it turns out that some of these so-called 'kings of the forest' are so frightened by these birds that they hide in the corner. It's not a joke," said Zhang.

Chinese zoologists are mulling a program to train tigers that have been bred in captivity to survive in the wild. The southwestern province of Sichuan has a similar program to help captive giant pandas back to the forest, according to Zhang.

He declined to reveal the timetable of the program.

"We have to be very careful, after all there are less Siberian tigers than pandas. We will continue to work with our Russian colleagues to collect information from Kuzya and Ustin's trip to China," he said.