October 14, 2007

First in Decades: South China Tiger Sighting

I’ve been away for parts of three days. Time to play a little catch up.

This following report is interesting as this felid subspecies (Panthera tigris amoyensis) may not be extinct.

south china tiger

(File photo of the South China Tiger.)

Beijung — A type of tiger thought to be extinct in the wild for more than two decades has been photographed in a mountainous area in northwest China, state media reported Saturday.

The endangered subspecies known as the South China tiger was spotted by a farmer on Oct. 3, the China Daily said.

Experts confirmed that it was a young wild South China tiger, the newspaper quoted Shaanxi Forestry Administration Bureau Deputy Director Zhu Julong as saying.

“After the careful examination, experts confirmed the authenticity of the photos. That means the tiger has been found again after more than 20 years,” Zhu said.

The South China tiger is one of the world’s smallest and the only tiger subspecies native to China’s central and southern areas, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

In the early 1950s, there were 4,000 of the tigers across the country, but that number fell as their habitat was squeezed by China’s economic boom. There are 68 of the tigers in zoos in China, the newspaper said.“Chinese farmer spots rare tiger in first sighting in decades,”AP, Houston Chronicle, October 13, 2007.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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