Tale of the Cat

Reversing a Trend
Tilson's early relationship with Chinese officialdom was almost scuppered by an inconvenient truth. In 2000, he and Minnesota Zoo teamed up with the SFA to make a census of wild South China tigers. They surveyed eight reserves in seven provinces over 18 months, set up hundreds of camera traps and investigated reports of any sighting — but found none. It was the first documented case of a tiger subspecies disappearing from the wild since the Javan tiger did so in the 1970s. Western colleagues cautioned Tilson that his gloomy conclusion would irritate the SFA. "They were right," he says, laughing. "It really irritated them. I was pretty much shunned for almost two years."

But one day Tilson got an out-of-the-blue call from the SFA inviting him to Beijing. China planned to reintroduce South China tigers to the wild and wanted Tilson to be the lead scientific adviser. In 2006, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the SFA and Tilson's South China Tiger Advisory Office based in Minnesota Zoo, and the long task of reintroducing tigers to the wild began. Tilson now gets red-carpet treatment in Beijing. "Somebody in China has said, 'This is a top-priority project,'" says Bart Nollen, the Dutch managing director of ICE, which is raising the private funds for the project. (See the top 10 invasive species.)

Tilson had to first work out which of the eight surveyed areas might support tigers once again. The winning candidate was the rugged Hupingshan-Houhe reserve, which lies within the tiger's historical range. Its terrain isn't too mountainous (contrary to popular belief, tigers prefer lowlands) and there is plenty of natural vegetation (other areas were blanketed with pine or bamboo trees). The human population, mainly elderly vegetable farmers banished there during Mao's political purges, is sparse and willing to relocate. Not that anyone is likely to stay put when the new neighbors arrive, jokes Tilson. "Once you get face to face with a tiger, you leave," he says. "They are formidable animals."

The next task is restoring the wilderness. Tigers need large habitats and abundant food; just one tiger will eat up to 12 pounds (5.4 kg) of meat a day, the equivalent of a large deer every week. Creating a tiger Eden virtually from scratch feels a bit like playing God, admits Tilson, but restoring the prey (mainly deer) will be "real easy," since all these species once lived in Hupingshan-Houhe in numbers that supported tigers. "We're not trying to reintroduce a bunch of animals and predators into a system that never had them before," he says. (See the top 10 animal stories of 2009.)

Once the wilderness is complete, the tricky part begins: breeding the tigers to inhabit it. The last remaining South China tigers could die out within a few generations unless their genes are supplemented with those from other subspecies. It is not an image China's propagandists will want to project: a captive population of "Chinese" tigers, enfeebled by decades of inbreeding and reliant on genes from, say, a Vietnamese subspecies before they can survive in the wild. But ultimately, says Tilson, the Chinese will have to accept this hybridization "because it's already been done and they have no other cards to play." It could be up to 10 years before the first pregnant tigers are taken to a remote, enclosed area within the reserve to deliver the cubs that will eventually populate it. Although captive-bred, the mothers will teach their young how to hunt and kill prey. "This ability is hardwired," says Tilson. "They don't lose it."

Into the Wild
Tigers breed easily — they are cats, after all — and some 5,000 are kept on farms across China. The recent SFA directive pledged to better regulate these farms, but not to shut them down. This makes a mockery of China's avowed concern for tigers, say many conservationists. The farms ostensibly make their money from tourists, although some illegally sell tiger meat and parts. How can the same SFA officials who plan to save the South China tigers ignore the fate of thousands of their farm-raised cousins? The authorities argue that if public demand can be met by farms then wild tigers won't be poached. But conservationists believe these same facilities fuel demand and fatally undermine conservation efforts. Steven Galster, director of the Bangkok-based wildlife and human-rights group FREELAND, says the SFA is using the reintroduction scheme "to justify captive-tiger breeding operations in China, some of which are actually selling tiger bones. Those sales are sending very mixed signals to Chinese consumers, perpetuating demand for tiger parts, which in turn sends a signal to poachers across Asia that this lucrative business is still taking orders." (Watch TIME's video "Wild Wallaby Rescue in Tasmania.")

How lucrative? By China's own estimate, the traditional-medicine industry has lost an average of $266 million a year since the domestic ban was imposed in 1993. That landmark legislation remains "critical" to the future of wild tigers, says Li Zhang, associate professor of conservation biology at Beijing Normal University. "The Chinese government needs to strengthen its enforcement of the ban," says Zhang.

Ron Tilson opposes tiger-farming — "The day I see tigers on meat hooks is the day I'm gonna die" — and says many of his SFA colleagues privately oppose it too. He believes that official and popular attitudes in China toward conservation are changing so fast that the country's past record is a poor guide for future actions. "That was then," he insists. "This is now." What China does next could decide whether this is a Year of the Tiger worth celebrating.

Read "Tigers on the Brink."

See TIME's Photo Essay "Wildly in Love."