National park for wild tigers and leopards to be established in Northeast China

Updated: 2016-12-09
(chinadaily.com.cn)

China is planning to set up a pilot program for a national park dedicated to Siberian tigers and Amur leopards in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, in a bid to preserve the animals and promote breeding.

The national park, said to be 15,000 square kilometers, will provide a livable, stable, and consistent habitat for these endangered big cats to multiply.

A space-air-ground monitoring network will be installed in the park to collect information closely related to the animals’ living and breeding activities, which will be used for future studies.

The scope of the park, ranging from Wangqing county and the city of Hunchun in Jilin to the city of Dongning in Heilongjiang, will include the animals’ main habitats, potential distribution areas, and future spatial needs, and is required to conserve the complete and natural ecosystem and avoid densely populated areas and those with frequent economic activities, according to Jilin’s forestry department.

“When the scope is determined, residents and factories in the area will be relocated,” said Xie Yan, an associate researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Experts explained that the habitat of Siberian tigers and Amur leopards in China overlaps a number of nature reserves but also human-dominated areas, including farmland, ginseng fields, pastures, reservoirs, factories and mines, roads and railways, which have fragmented and narrowed the living space of these wild creatures.

According to monitoring data from China and Russia, at least 35 tigers and 70 leopards live in the less than 4,000-square-kilometer area neighboring Hunchun and Russia’s Land of Leopard National Park, which means the animal numbers are three times higher than they should be given the idea population density.

Meanwhile, limited by geographical factors, they have to move into the hinterland of Changbai Mountains in China instead of into Russia.

Sitting at the top of the food chain in the forest ecosystem, tigers and leopards play an essential role and are a sign of a healthy environment. The number of wild tigers in the world has shrunk from 100,000 a century ago to under 4,000.

“The reemergence of Siberian tigers and Amur leopards in China is an result of the country’s long-term commitment to ecological civilization construction and natural protection,” said Professor Ge Jianping, vice-president of Beijing Normal University, who has long been engaged in tiger and leopard investigations. “Now China is facing a crucial opportunity to restore and protect them.”

Fan Zhiyong, from the Bejing office of the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature or World Wildlife Fund), believes that the national park pilots will be a start for cooperation on natural protection between China and Russia.

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