TAKING TURNS to act as human ploughs, Liang Jianmin and his tiger survey team forge through mile after mile of knee-deep snow in the mountain forests near China’s frozen mountain border with Siberia.
From dawn to dusk they track, looking for droppings, paw prints, bark scratchings, scraps of fur caught on twigs and fences, any sign that the Amur tiger – the biggest cat species in the world – is still alive in the wilds of China.
Elsewhere in Hunchun, other teams scour the slopes and valleys near the North Korean border, while in Russia, zoologists and conservation groups trudge through the taiga forest with the same goal: measuring the scale of the challenge facing the most ambitious effort yet to save the endangered predator.
Next week, China will start the year of the tiger with fireworks, feasting and a new drive by the government, the World Bank and conservation groups to halt the decline of Asia’s most powerful wildlife symbol.
Since the last tiger year, in 1998, the worldwide population of the animal living in the wild has almost halved to about 3,200 due to habitat loss, economic development and poaching for hides and traditional medicine.
China has been among the worst affected. The South China tiger, which has not been seen for many years, is feared to have followed the Bali, Caspian and Java subspecies into extinction in the wild. In the country’s north, the population of the Amur tiger – which can grow to three metres in length and 300kg – is estimated at 18 to 22 individuals.
Many of these animals are isolated from one another by roads and railways, making it difficult for them to breed.
The conservation group WWF warns the animal may be extinct in the wild in China within three decades if current trends continue. The tiger is the group’s priority for 2010. Across the world, other would-be saviours are taking advantage of the Chinese zodiac to press home the need for changes in consumption and development patterns. Last week, the first Asian ministerial conference on tiger conservation, in Hua Hin, Thailand, set a goal of doubling the wild population by the start of the next tiger year, in 2022.
The Chinese government recently issued a directive calling for increased protection of wild tigers through habitat management, public education and stronger law enforcement action.
In September, Vladivostok will host the first tiger summit, which is expected to be co-hosted by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and World Bank president Robert Zoellick.