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WALKING
WITH TIGERS AT
LAOHU VALLEY IN SOUTH AFRICA -BY
LI QUAN October
2005 At the end of
September, I returned to Laohu Valley Reserve to spend October with our Chinese
Tigers. It has been a little bit
longer than a month since Hope died on August 20th and this has been
the longest and one of the saddest months of my life. What do we do with Cathay now? After the
initial shocking news of Hope’s death, I spent most of my time and energy on
dealing with Hope’s autopsy issues and media inquiries. However, the one issue
that has been haunting me most is what we should do with Cathay now? Cathay came
over to South Africa together with Hope and they were destined to be a breeding
pair. They have never been separated for the past two years and they lived
through good and troubled times together. Cathay, being the older of the two,
always looked after Hope. When Hope was treated for a Baboon bite, it was Cathay
who encouraged him to come out of the treatment camp into the bigger camp again.
During their hunting training, it was Cathay that mostly took the lead with Hope
helping her. The two of them never
had a row over who gets their food first…Now just a few weeks after Hope died,
Cathay is reported to have started spraying and calling, a loud kind of coughing
roar, which could indicate that she is sexually mature and ready to mate! As our other
male TigerWoods is still a young tiger, my first reaction is that we needed to
get Cathay a sexually mature male from a Chinese zoo to keep her company and
mate with her. One of the crucial components of a successful Chinese Tiger
reintroduction project is to have as many Chinese tiger cub offspring from
Cathay and Madonna as possible. Failure to have as many cubs born would severely
impact the successful reintroduction of the Chinese Tigers back to China.
Hope’s death has brought all of
our Tiger team in agreement on what we need to do in terms of breeding them to a
maximum capacity. The China Party were very receptive to this idea and suggested
to put this on the agenda of the workshop in December, which is going to
evaluate the two candidate sites. When I went
to see the tigers in the morning of Sept 30, both Madonna and TigerWoods came to
greet me at the gate and seemed to be very happy, they chuffed and chuffed. I
had to be interviewed for a news program - Ausland Journal of ZDF-the State
German TV Station, and both Madonna and TigerWoods seemed to know the cue, as
they stayed on the other side of the fence just behind me during my interview
within the camera range. When we went to visit Cathay’s camp, however, she
just came over to the fence and greeted me very briefly. She then disappeared
into the donga, where she kept her food which she was given the previous day.
In the month
that followed, it seemed to me that Cathay was very absent-minded. Apart from
eating, sleeping and spraying, she spent most of her time staring into the camp
where TigerWoods and Madonna are living. She often followed the younger tigers
walking on the other side of the fence. One day, I heard her giving out these
coughing roars four times, she is clearly in heat as tigers roar to look for
mates when they are in heat. When
Hope was alive he and Cathay would play together. But after Hope died Cathay
would from time to time launch herself into bouts of frenzy play with a dead
prey carcass as if it were alive. One of the
saddest thing happened one day when I was observing her: TigerWoods and Madonna
were playing in their camp while Cathay was looking on from the other side of
the fence. At the younger cubs’ frienziest moment, Cathay suddenly jumped up,
almost as if participating in the younger cubs’ tumbles. Of course she was
stopped by the fence which she could only run alongside … A surge of sorrow
arose in me: This is when I decided that we must put Cathay together with
TigerWoods and Madonna. Our Tiger
team was somewhat worried about my decision. What if they did not like each
other and hurt one another or even kill one another? That would have grave
consequences indeed. However, based on my close observations, I was convinced
that Cathay may soon develop psychological problems if she stays by herself for
too long, although the younger tigers were very considerate and would often come
to greet and chuff at her. I seriously doubt that they would hurt one another
maliciously because all the indications from the tigers are that they really
like one another and want to be together! Before Hope died, the four of them
often congregated next to the fence and spent time either admiring one another
or walking along the fence. Since Hope died, TigerWoods and Madonna now come to
visit Cathay even more frequently-every day and several times a day. Cathay is
of course the most eager, so although being the oldest, biggest and therefore
most dominant tiger, I do not believe she will hurt the younger tigers. The visiting
of a friend Eddie Van Eyk convinced our Tiger team. Eddie has a zoo himself near
Johannesburg with all sorts of big or small wild cats including some Bengal
Tigers (one of them actually died also suddenly on August 19th of
unknown cause). Eddie had plenty of experience having raised a number of tigers
himself. He observed our Chinese tigers and agreed with me that there should not
be much risk of the tigers disliking one another. Further, he also believed that
since the younger tigers TigerWoods and Madonna have started emulating Cathay in
spraying, it may be a good idea to let TigerWoods and Cathay start familiarizing
with one another, which would facilitate their potential future breeding. This also led
me to believe that instead of obtaining another adult male tiger from China, our
best bet would possibly be on TigerWoods. There are just too many problems
involved in obtaining an adult male tiger from Chinese zoo that by the time we
do get one, TigerWoods may have already mated Cathay! Walking with TigerWoods and Madonna I had once
walked with a Bengal tiger in a Buddhist Monastery in Thailand. She was on a dog
leash and she actually walked me rather than me walking her! Being a 14 months
old tiger, she was strong enough to command even Wusong (a historical Chinese
hero who killed a tiger barehanded), were he alive, not mentioning me with mere
50kilos. Madonna was
observed with a couple of bare batches-a sign of fungal infection, a couple of
weeks ago. Although the infection seemed to have stopped expanding further, out
of precaution, we called on a vet Joseph Van Heerden to come and treat her.
Joseph is one of the top wildlife vets in South Africa and moved to Kimberly six
months ago. Kimberly is only two and half hours away from Laohu Valley so it is
a great benefit to our project that Joseph moved there. Joseph has many years of
experience in treating all kinds of big cats, although he had never treated a
tiger before. However, he has done some careful studying before he came over and
I was greatly impressed by the knowledge he acquired on zoo tigers. He did seem
to have a great deal of reservations about the conventional anti-fungal drugs
and sedatives that he has come up with different and safer alternatives to treat
Madonna. After Joseph
examined her and took samples, Madonna reacted very well to the sedative and
woke up in 3 minutes after the antidote was applied to her. She weighed 72 kilos
–nearly 50% more than me, although she still has that slender body of little
girl tiger. Joseph’s prescription for her and TigerWoods were different from
previous vets. Instead of giving them conventional tablets and regular medicinal
wash, he prescribed some special capsules-
Sporanox. These
are no ordinary capsules and they have never been used on animals before so we
are the first ever to apply them on a tiger! Although I am glad we do not need
to train the young tigers to go into the treatment crush cage now but I am
appalled by the costs of these super drugs, which are to amount to several
thousand English pounds at the end of the tigers’ treatment! Since
Hope’s death, our team has been trying to train TigerWoods and Madonna to get
into the Treatment crush cage (a special kind of cage for treating animals) in
case they would need medical attention in the future. However, TigerWoods and
Madonna are no fools! Having seen how Cathay and Hope were enticed into and
treated in the Crush cage, the young ones refused to even walk into the half
hectare camp where the cage is located, even less get into the cage!
Our Tiger team has resigned to this defeat and therefore is very happy
that they did not have to use any medicine that may require the use of the Crush
cage. The treatment
was to start the next day, October 2, after the Vet examined Madonna. It was no
small feat to give both tigers the drugs in turn the next morning. After they
got their medicine with meat, I
sat with them at the fence for a while. Then
I decided to take a short walk along the fence. To my
amazement, first Madonna then TigerWoods all got up and followed me on the other
side of the fence, playing with each other as they went along. I wanted to know
if they were intentionally following me so I gave them a little test, I suddenly
stopped in my tracks. The tigers also stopped looking at me as if puzzled and
wanting direction. When I pretended to turn and walk back, they would also copy
me. When I “changed” my mind and walked further towards the half hectare
camp, they again followed me. When I needed to walk away from the fence to avoid
some thorny plants, they would wait for me on the other side. When they had to
do the same, they would quickly run to catch up with me. The whole time they
would chuff at me, especially after these little “hiccups” with plants and
turns, etc. I felt so incredibly honoured to discover that these tigers are
walking with me! I wanted to
see how they would react to me when we reached the 0.5 ha camp, which was the
most dreadful little camp in their eyes, where their older mates got caught into
this dreadful cage to be sprayed with some foul smelling medicine, so I walked
further towards the 0.5 hectare camp. When I reached the 0.5 ha gate, I walked
passed it. TigerWoods arrived and stopped at the gate. In order to continue to
follow me, he will have to walk over into the 0.5 hectare camp through this
dreadful gate. He hesitated for a while but seeing that I walked further and
further away, he made a sudden little jump across the gate into the 0.5 camp, as
if there were a huge barrier on the ground that stopped him simply walking into
it! Madonna
stopped at the gate. She crouched down and refused to make a move. Whilst I was
trying to encourage her by calling, she stood up and became very hesitant. She
made some movements with her front legs to walk into the 0.5 hectare camp but
her front paws stopped right in mid air, as if there was this invisible glass
door stopping her from making an entrance.
I continued to call her and chuff at her, and as if to prove to me that
she would do everything for a friend, she finally took the plunge and also
jumped across into the 0.5 ha camp! This
was their first time inside this small camp and they seemed to be very excited
by all the exciting new smells of
the plants. I left them exploring and sniffing on their own… . Thereafter,
feeding them the antifungal medicine became an easy job, as Madonna (almost
always the first!) and TigerWoods got into the routine of walking with me along
the fence and the gate would close after TigerWoods has walked into the 0.5
hectare camp to separate him from Madonna. They would then each receive their
portion of medicine-stuffed game meat. It also seems that they were looking
forward to this twice-a-day routine of walking along the fence with me, as they
would either be right at the fence waiting when I drove up, or would quickly
wake up from their sleep to come to me, as if for fear of missing the walk,
every morning and afternoon. I also discovered that they relaxed much easily
during the walk and would play at the dry river bed so I would stop there to let
them lie down on the ground, rolling and playing with one another. I took quite
a bit of good footage of them playing and chasing after each another. On
occasions when there were other people that came along, the tigers would become
hostile and tense, refusing to relax and play and sometimes even snarling at
them, as if to say this is our private tiger walking moment and intruders are
not welcome. … I am not sure
how to interpret their behaviour but I am so proud that I am being treated as a
member of the tiger clan by these young tigers. Perhaps, they remember that I was the first one that
approached them when they were in quarantine in Beijing, while they were
spitting and snarling at everyone that dared to come even within 50 meters of
them? Perhaps they remember that I went to feed them water during transit in HK
airport? Perhaps Madonna remembers that I pushed the water bowl under her nose
when she was so weak from dehydration that she could not even move when she
first arrived in Laohu? Perhaps she remembers that I had gently stroked her back
when she came to chuff at me for the first time, after she recovered a little
from dehydration? Anyway, it is
an incredible experience to be granted this honour to walk with them，
particularly since they are on their way to become proficient hunters, and it is
an experience that I would give anything I have for. Epilogue: Three Tigers Together A few days
after I left Laohu Valley, on October 26, the gate between the quarantine camp
and the 4 ha camp was opened and TigerWoods was lured in to meet Cathay. Cathay
had developed a fear of the gate leading to the quarantine camp so TigerWoods
had to come to her. Not knowing
what to expect, it was decided to first keep Madonna away in the 9 ha camp.
The staff was also geared to deal with a negative reaction and was in a
position to separate the tigers again should a major fight ensue. TigerWoods
entered the 4 ha camp full of bravado. His
entire demeanour was one of “I am in charge!”.
This did not sit well with Cathay and she immediately showed him who in
fact was the dominant tiger. TigerWoods
seemed confused – was he not the male and in charge?
Cathay circled him for over an hour, keeping him in a submissive state
lying on the ground with his belly exposed.
He did not take too kindly to this treatment and roared and swatted at
Cathay with his paws, even though he was lying on his back. After an
hour, Cathay let up the relentless circling and allowed TigerWoods to get up.
She still made him realise where his position in the hierarchy was going
to be, but she did start playing with him.
Both of them ran into the drainage line, climbed trees and chased after
each other. Madonna had
been watching all of this from the safety of the 9 ha camp, but it was clear
that she felt severely put out that she was not allowed to join in the fun.
After two hours it was decided that all was going really well and Madonna
could be allowed in. The gate was opened, and Madonna did not hesitate at all.
She ran to Cathay and it was as if she had found a mother figure!
She chuffed, head rubbed and made constant body contact with Cathay.
Cathay’s
reaction was completely different to when she met TigerWoods.
She immediately responded to Madonna by returning the affection showed
and within minutes they were playing with one another.
As severe as she was with TigerWoods, as gentle was she with Madonna.
It was also very clear seeing them next to one another that Cathay and
Madonna were sisters. Their
markings are noticeably similar. To
end this perfect afternoon, all three tigers played with one another, chasing
each other around and maybe this is anthropomorphic but it seemed as if Cathay
had a smile on her face! In fact
over the next couple of days she really seemed to be a happier tiger than when
she was on her own. Until early
November the tigers were put together every day but then again separated at
night. Then the day came to move
Cathay from the 4 ha enclosure to the 9 ha with TigerWoods and Madonna.
Cathay had an unreasonable fear of the gate leading from the 4 ha camp
into the quarantine camp. Once when she dragged a carcass across the gate it made a
loud noise and it was assumed that this had caused her fear.
Finally in early November she moved into the quarantine camp of her own
accord and the gate to the 9 ha was opened.
This gate proved to be no problem and since then the three tigers have
stayed together in this larger enclosure. When they are
fed, they are still separated simply to avoid major incidents.
In December it is envisaged to move all three of them back into the
larger enclosure (where the live blesbok are) and to then leave them together
permanently. -END-
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Copyright © Andrew McDermott 2002 |
