October 14, 2007

Long time, no see A farmer in Shaanxi has photographed a wild South China Tiger. Feared extinct in the wild, it's the first time since 1964 one of the rare beasts has been spotted.
posted by Abiezer_Coppe 17 years ago
  • ...it's the first time since 1964 one of the rare beasts has been spotted. Are we sure this isn't a South China Leopard?
  • AHA HA HA! But otherwise, HOORAY
  • What's Mandarin for hooray?
  • It's a pretty beast. My favorite big cat is the tiger. Though you wouldn't want one down beside ya Their breath aint too great And they heft a great weight Then you'd probly end up insider.
  • I was actually physically thrilled at the news, which probably tells you something about what sort of loon I am. Oddly, there's not really a direct equivalent of "hooray" in Chinese (not much to shout about recently?). Maybe 太棒了 ("Too excellent") would fit here, or 好极了, even 欢呼吧! We'll need Neddy for a ruling on what a real person might shout. Shaanxi is way up in the north-west - I haven't checked my own links very thoroughly (as usual) so not sure if this would be in its traditional range. Even though urbanisation is going nuts here (and deforestation has long been nuts), it is a big country so let's hope some room can be preserved for these magnificent beasts. People no longer actively killing them so much of course helps. We also need a shoot-to-kill policy for poachers and forest encroachers, which I would be happy to execute.
  • Fingers crossed. Is this a shaggier or smoother kind of tiger than your standard Bengal?
  • I'd read at one link they are a bit smaller, Plegmund, but nothing about the coat. IIRC the Qinling mountains where this happened have quite a lot of properly policed reserve already, as pandas hang about there too, so prospects might be good, particularly as if this one is young you expect the parents might be nearby. If Mr Zhou continues his photographic exploits, we might the ultimate squee shot of a panda cub adopted by a tiger!
  • Yes, it is those Qinling mountains.
  • I only ask because I remember reading somewhere that the Sumatran tiger was sleek, presumably because the main priority was getting through the undergrowth, whereas the Siberian tiger was shaggy, presumably because in that environment the main need was keeping warm. Sounds as if conditions are mixed in the Qinling mountains.
  • That certainly makes sense. I think the South China tiger was native to some quite tropical forest in places like Fujian, so I'd suppose it tends more to the Sumatra side of hirsuteness. Bit hard to tell from those pics.
  • NEVER LEAVE THE BOAT
  • I always wondered what kind of loon you were, Abie! ;-) btw, GOOD KITTY!
  • yeah!! I too would be happy to execute poachers. /gets elephant gun
  • Oh, boy! One tiger may not have died yet. Let's all go tourist on his ass and run him out of his territory or give him a nervous breakdown. Then I can shoot him so we can have documentation that he did exist and now his hide can go into a museum to be seen by all posterity. (With my name on the label underneath, of course) Wait, did the sarcasm show? I'd much rather, instead of one being spotted, there were hundreds out there that we didn't know about because they were so smart, so elusive, and so good at adapting and breeding that they could hold on no matter how people ravage their environment.
  • Like Bigfoot.
  • /gets elephant gun Is that a blue elephant gun?
  • Hooray!!!
  • This is so cool. I love tigers, as I do all cats. We'll need Neddy for a ruling on what a real person might shout. Err... dunno, really. I do my shouting in English, most of the time. The Taiwanese had the awful habit of saying "好棒!" (literally, "good rod!") several years ago, and it's spread here too. Spoken especially by young girls who want to sound cute. The obvious phallic association is not coincidental. I think "好呀!" is probably quite common, since it's very easy to shout (pronounced Hao Ya/Ah).
  • This has been an on-going net furore for weeks here now. Seems the photo was definitely a fake (here's some evidence the guy ripped it off a traditional new year's wall calendar (!!). The photoshoppers have been having fun. (both links in Chinese but with pics; some of the jokes a bit local.)
  • Bummer.
  • I think there were genuinely tracks of a tiger found by national park foresters though rory, so it's not all miserable; the beastie is just sensibly evading the glare of publicity and scheming farmer's lenses.
  • Turns out it is faked.
  • Ehm, or what Abiezer said.
  • Jesus. What a shambles zoos here are.
  • My favorite big cat is the tiger. Mine is the snow leopard (previously).