HARBIN, April 26 (Xinhua) -- A wild Siberian tiger that surfaced in a northeast China village and injured a villager has been caught and sent to an animal breeding center, local authorities said.
According to wildlife experts, this is the first time that China has successfully rescued a wild Siberian tiger in the wild.
"Usually, if we spot a wild Siberian tiger in the wild, we just drive it into the mountains," said Jiang Guangshun, a professor at the Northeast Forestry University. "But, this tiger strayed into the village and could have hurt more people, so we had to catch it."
At about 6 a.m. Friday, local police received a report that a tiger had entered an abandoned house in Linhu Village in Heilongjiang Province, and attacked a local working in the farmland. The tiger then hid in a ditch near the village.
Police rushed to the spot and evacuated the locals. At about 9 p.m., police successfully caged the tiger after tranquilizing it.
On Saturday, the tiger was transported to a feline breeding center in the city of Mudanjiang.
According to the breeding center, it is a male tiger of two to three years old weighing approximately 225 kg. It has resumed intaking its normal diet and is in good health.
Meanwhile, the villager who had suffered minor injuries is receiving medical treatment at a local hospital.
Siberian tigers, also known as Amur or Manchurian tigers, mainly inhabit eastern Russia, northeast China, and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The species are on the national first-class protection list in China.
China has launched a pilot national park project for Siberian tigers and Amur leopards, spanning an area of over 1.46 million hectares in the northeastern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang. There are at least 27 wild Siberian tigers and 42 wild Amur leopards in the park.
Wildlife experts said that in the past six months, wild Siberian tigers have been spotted multiple times in the two provinces.
Their frequent sighting shows the improving ecological environment in northeast China, said Zhou Shaochun, a researcher with the Heilongjiang provincial academy of forestry sciences. During the past five years, Heilongjiang has afforested 388,000 hectares of land and strengthened forest tending covering 3.49 million hectares. Enditem
