a healthy two-month-old south china tiger cub is learning wilderness survival skills at a breeding base in shaoguan city, south china's guangdong province.
the female cub enjoys a few hours of outdoor activity everyday and has become especially fond of hugging the legs of her keepers.
the survival skills are essential for an animal to make it in the wild, according to li shizhou, senior engineer at the yuebei south china tiger nature reserve.
"the keepers take it outside everyday to let it learn wilderness skills," he said. "they also interact and play with the cub to help it adapt to the new environment. the young tiger also needs daily exercises for healthy growth. the cub is now at a child's age, so it likes to interact and play with the keepers. as the cub is teething, it likes to bite the legs and shoes of the keepers when playing with them. it also likes hugging them. these are instinctive behaviors."
the cub weighs between six and seven kilograms currently.
"now we are in the second phase of artificial nursing. we mainly feed the cub with meat, as well as milk. as its teeth grow, we have started to change the menue, from minced meat to meat chunks. the cub still cannot chew bones now, but we are using bones to help it grind teeth," li said.
after a meal, the cub is taken back to its bespoke cage, which has adequate play space.
"when the cub was one month old, its body became too big for the incubator. we thought of a solution and made this wooden cage, which has a larger space for the cub to play and move. when the cub is three months old, it will be able to climb out of the cage, so we will transfer it to a nurturing zoo," li said.
in the nurturing zoo, the cub is also receiving training in climbing and foraging skills, he added.
the breeding and research base in shaoguan has successfully raised seven south china tigers since its establishment in 2008.
the species is under first-class state protection in china and has been listed as a critically endangered species by the international union for conservation of nature (iucn) since 1996.
china is the only habitat for south china tigers. only about 200 of the species are believed to be alive. as all are descendants of just six tigers, there is a high possibility of genetic diseases among them.
