By Fu Tongxian

The tiger pounced at me, its head just about 30 centimeters away from me, its saliva splashing on my face, the odor of the animal overwhelming. I was not in a dream. It was a real tiger. But I was not scared, for I was safely inside a jeep, protected by a huge cage.

It was two days ago at the Hangzhou Safari Park. I was photographing six adult Manchurian tigers. We put some fresh pork on a hook on the protection wire. A 2-meter-long tiger stood up, putting its two forelegs on the jeep. I saw its huge mouth open, showing four sharp teeth. The reddish tongue swiped at the pork and the pork disappeared. I clicked the shutter. It was the first time I had ever photographed a tiger at such a close distance.

I took more photographs. Another tiger took interest in the meat and snatched some. But the other four just ignored the bait. The guide told me that the tigers had gone wild a few days before when a cow was let into their territory. I could have taken more exciting pictures if I had been there.

I actually knew a lot about tigers in my childhood years in my home village in the southern Jiangxi Province in the early 1950s. Two kids from my clan were playing on the village ground when a South China tiger charged at them out of woods. The bigger boy splashed dusts towards the tigers eyes. So the ferocious animal turned and bit into the neck of the little boy, snatched him onto the back, and ran away. When villagers rushed out armed with axes and hoes, the tiger and the little boy were nowhere to be found. They found some blood here and there.

I also learned that tigers would not attack human beings unless they were hungry. In the same year when the above-said little boy died tragically, a man in my village ran into a tiger on a narrow path. Face to face with the huge animal, the man was scared. But he knew he should never turn around and burst into running, for the tiger would mistake such a sudden move as an attack and attack him. So he just stilled his will and walked gingerly on, telling himself not to look at the tiger in the eyes. He passed by the animal and nothing happened.

I was in middle school in 1958. For months, we students and teachers felled trees in local primitive forests and produced charcoal. One night, our homeroom teacher and some students went out to check charcoal burners. They ran into a tiger. They were scared. Fortunately, the tiger simply walked away. It was also in 1958, I remember, a grandma in a village at the foot of the mountain went out in the early morning to pick dog shits on the village roads and fields. The old woman saw a yellow animal lying at the edge of a sugarcane field. She thought it was a cow. She yelled whose cow it was and touched the animal on the back with a long stick. It was a tiger. Astonished, the tiger attacked the woman and killed her. But the killer did not run away. It stayed there but left the body untouched. The creature was later shot dead by armed militia.

During these years, I walked home from school every Saturday and went back to school on Sunday. My parents were extremely worried about my safety, for I needed to walk 5 kilometers through the dark woods. I spotted something like a tiger at distance in one of these weekend journeys. Cold sweat burst out instantly. Fortunately, nothing happened to me.

In the 1950s, sightings of South China tigers were reported in more than 20 counties in southern Jiangxi. In 1955 and 1956, 171 tigers were captured by local hunters. 1958 was a disastrous year for wild animals in Jiangxi. That year, large areas of primitive forests were hacked down and tigers food chain was broken. The number of tigers in the wilderness dropped drastically. It was estimated in 1970 that there were fewer than 10 tigers still roaming the mountains in southern Jiangxi. Since 1975, not a single tiger has been seen.

Though tigers were officially rehabilitated in 1973 and were no longer considered the enemy of the people, it was too late. In 1956, 1,750 tiger skins were sold to the state buyers in the whole country. In 1979, only one tiger skin was offered to the government buyers. A three-year survey from 1990 to 1992 conducted by Chinese and international experts estimated that there were about 20 to 30 South China tigers existing in the mountains where Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces meet. A field study in 2001, however, confirmed that the species was no longer there. The latest sighting of a South China tiger in the wilderness was dated November, 1986. A 24-kg tiger cub walked into a trap set up for capturing wild hogs in Anren County, Hunan Province. The tiger later died of a serious injury caused by the trap. Experts have long since believed that south China tigers are extinct in the wilderness. That was exactly why they firmly believed it was a fraud in 2007 when a farmer showed pictures of an adult tiger to the whole nation and said how he encountered the rare animal.□