Why can't the "mysterious voice" in Guizhou be a tiger roar? What is the current situation of wild tigers in China?

In July, 2020, a mountain village in Weining County, Guizhou Province caught fire and became a new punching place among network celebrities. Many tourists have come to Shangtian and Tianlong on the slopes of Tianshan Mountain. The reason is that you can hear a? Mysterious voice? Because most people are not familiar with this sound, why don't you compare it with the legendary one? Long Yin? Connected.

Originally, this was just a very common thing, and similar incidents occurred from time to time. For example, Heaulme was mistaken for a baby dragon earlier, but was later spread to the divine world. In addition, in order to attract attention, some bloggers filmed local videos and deliberately spread rumors with the voice of tigers and wolves, which attracted the attention of the whole people.

Experts went to Guizhou to investigate the source of mysterious sounds.

After careful study and appraisal by many experts, all kinds of rumors were dispelled and the source of this sound was finally determined. This is a bird widely distributed in China. Three-toed quail with yellow feet? Guizhou is one of its main distribution areas.

Strange to say, the yellow-footed three-toed quail weighing less than 200 grams sounds like Niu Jiao, which really broke many people's cognition. In fact, although the yellow-footed three-toed quail is not good at singing, its crowing frequency increases obviously during the breeding period, so many curious netizens can hear its voice.

Three-toed quail with yellow feet

Of course, the truth is very clear now, in a deep mountain in Weining County, Guizhou Province? Mysterious voice? It's made by quail with yellow feet and three toes, but in the original versions of many myths, the tiger's roar? It also won the support of a large number of people, which aroused my great interest, indicating that most people don't know the distribution of wild tigers in China today, so that they will believe this rumor.

If we don't know the distribution of tigers in China today, we will still be mistaken for other unknown voices in other places. Tiger's roar? It is possible, so I will explain this knowledge in detail from the historical distribution, sharp decline process and current living conditions of tigers in China.

tiger

Tiger's roar? Is it possible? There are five kinds of tigers in Chinese history, namely, South China Tiger, Northeast Tiger, Xinjiang Tiger, Bengal Tiger and Indochina Tiger. Geographically, if there is a tiger in Guizhou, it must be the South China Tiger.

South China Tiger, as a tiger subspecies endemic to China, was once widely distributed in China, not only in South China, but also in North China, Central China, East China and Southwest China. It used to be the biggest tiger in China and even in the world. Unfortunately, in the 1950s and 1970s, South China tigers disappeared in large numbers and eventually became extinct in the wild.

At present, all the South China tigers in China are kept in captivity, which means that there are no wild South China tigers in any wild environment in China. Some people may ask: Is it possible for the South China Tiger to appear in the wild?

In fact, after so many years of scientific research, folk witness events and other results, the existence probability of wild South China tigers is almost zero, and although the concept of wild release of captive tigers has been put forward, there is no experiment on wild release of South China tigers in Weining County, Guizhou Province so far, so there will be no tigers here at all.

South China tiger

At present, the only reliable way to reproduce the South China tiger in the wild is to keep it in captivity and let it go wild. However, there are many difficulties in this regard. Due to the serious destruction of habitats, the animals in the forest are almost extinct. At present, most forest ecosystems in China can no longer bear the existence of large carnivores.

Of course, there is no way to solve the problem of the lack of large ungulates in the forest. You can refer to the practice of the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, that is, releasing ungulates, such as sika deer, trained in the wild in batches. But this will lead to another dilemma, that is, most forests in China do not meet the requirements of the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park. The fundamental reasons for killing tigers in the early days of the People's Republic of China were the conflict between people and tigers, population growth and people's agricultural production.

The reason why the tiger roar is untenable is still in the sound itself. From the unmodified video circulating, we can clearly hear the sound like boiling a kettle? Woo-hoo ~? Howling, but the tiger's voice is as loud as a lion's roar, which makes people feel scared. Moreover, the howling of tigers is particularly loud, reaching more than 1 10 decibel, with a wide transmission distance of about 5-7 kilometers.

What is this concept? To put it simply, we usually speak at about 40-60 decibels, and long-term exposure to the sound environment exceeding 1 10 decibels will cause permanent and irreversible damage to our hearing. Generally speaking, if we hear the roar of a tiger so close to the scene, people will be scared and run away, and it is impossible to find the sound source in despair.

The South China Tiger, which disappeared in the wild but not extinct, is unique to China, so there are also tigers? Chinese tiger? It is the oldest tiger in modern times, which was proved by some scientists using DNA technology in 2005. Compared with other subspecies, the South China tiger has a rounder head and narrower and shorter stripes, but the stripe spacing is much wider than that of the Northeast tiger and Bengal tiger.

South China tiger is not big among tigers. Average weight of male tiger 150kg, head and tail length about 2.5m, average weight of female tiger 120kg, head and tail length about 2.3m.. ..

As mentioned above, the South China Tiger is now extinct in the wild, but many people who are not familiar with this endangered level often mistakenly think that the South China Tiger is extinct. Actually? Extinction in the wild? Follow? Extinction? They are two concepts. Extinction in the wild is one level lower than extinction. In addition, there are unexplored, lack of data, no danger, near danger, easy danger, endangered and extremely dangerous. All are the endangered category standards formulated by IUCN.

Simply put, extinction in the wild means that there are no wild individuals, but they still exist in the artificial environment. Extinction means that this species has disappeared, and there is no living thing in the wild or artificial environment, such as the marsupial wolf and china rhino, which are all extinct animals.

Endangered category

In history, most parts of China have traces of the life of the South China Tiger. They often appear in areas with lush vegetation, such as ridges and bushes. They are typical mountain animals, feeding on wild boar, bison, deer and other medium and large ungulates. However, in some areas where prey is scarce, South China tigers can also be seen to lower the size standard of prey.

Since the 1950s, China's population has increased greatly, and the productivity has been greatly developed, resulting in the living space of wild animals being compressed. Man-tiger conflict? It's getting worse, so all kinds of places have been formed? Tiger? The large-scale killing of the South China Tiger and other major targets eventually made the South China Tiger extinct in the wild.

South China tiger

The practice of raising South China tigers in China is similar to that of other countries in the world in treating endangered wild animals, that is, capturing existing wild individuals for artificial breeding. For example, India captured all the remaining 13 Asian lions in the wild in 1908, and then bred them artificially. So far, there are more than 700 Asian lions, all of which live in Gil Forest National Park in Gujarat.

1958 and 1959 captured/kloc-0 male and 2 female South China tigers from Qingzhen, Changshun and Bijie, Guizhou, respectively, and mated on 1 963 to produce offspring. Therefore, to be precise, the artificial breeding of China South China Tiger started from 1963.

South China Tiger in Chongqing Zoo

The distribution of historical tigers in China has different opinions about the origin of modern tigers. Many supporters say that the modern tiger originated in Henan province, where the South China tiger lived at that time. According to the research results in 2005, the South China tiger is indeed the oldest of modern tigers, which indirectly proves this hypothesis.

After the origin of modern tigers, the population of tigers developed rapidly because there were no super-large carnivores on the earth at that time. After reaching habitat saturation, East Asia expanded to other parts of Asia, and finally nine subspecies were formed through geographical isolation. In addition to the five species that survived in China mentioned above, there are Sumatran tigers, Malay tigers, Barry tigers and Java tigers that live on islands in Southeast Asia.

Tigers originated and lived in Asia, and China was once the biggest place for tigers to live. More than half of the tigers in the world live in China. Before the 20th century, there were five tiger subspecies in China. Except some alpine meadows, deserts and plains, tigers are abundant in most forest ecosystems in China.

Listening to some old people's memories, when I was a child, I often heard the roar of tigers coming from the depths of the mountains. Many old people even saw tigers around villages and fields with their own eyes. These tigers are basically South China tigers, and their distribution covers more than half of China, mainly in the southeast.

South China tiger

Many people know that the South China Tiger is endemic to China, but what people don't know is that before the Qing Dynasty, the Northeast Tiger was also a subspecies endemic to China. They live in the radiation belts on both sides of Daxing 'anling, Xiaoxing 'anling and Changbai Mountain, extending from northeastern Hebei to eastern Siberia.

However, in 1858, after the Qing court cut most of the foreign Manchurian territory to Russia, the subspecies of Siberian tiger was no longer unique to China. In terms of distribution range and quantity, the Northeast Tiger is a subspecies second only to the South China Tiger in history.

Siberian tiger

Xinjiang Tiger is the most mysterious tiger in China. It is also called internationally? Where's Li? There are not many documents about Xinjiang tigers in history, and no image data have been left so far, but the distribution of Xinjiang tigers is very regular, mainly concentrated in the north and south sides of Tianshan Mountain, namely Tarim Basin and Junggar Basin.

Because Xinjiang is the inland area with the least rainfall in Asia, and the tiger is an animal that relies heavily on water resources, we have figured out the historical water system distribution in Xinjiang and basically figured out the distribution range of tigers in Xinjiang. Generally speaking, they live by water, mostly on both sides of rivers, around lakes and desert oases.

Xinjiang tiger hand-painted

Although Bengal tiger and Indian zhina tiger are also distributed in China, should these two tigers be considered? Niche? Yes, the distribution range and quantity are small, only in the southwest border area. In the 1950s, the total number of these two tigers was only 60-80, which was not a fraction of that of the South China tigers.

Of these two kinds of tigers, Bengal tiger is mainly distributed in Tibet and Yunnan, with only a few in Sichuan, while Indo-Chinese tiger only lives on the border of Yunnan, with the least number, so it has not been the main object of people's attention, even in? Man-tiger conflict? In the most violent era, Bengal tigers and Indochina tigers were also less affected.

Bengal tiger

During the sudden decline of tigers in China, a large number of tigers disappeared in a short time, mainly during the 1950s and 1980s. Before the 1950s, although the number of tigers showed a downward trend compared with the early historical period, it did not affect the living condition of this species as a whole, let alone endangered.

After 1950s, the unprecedented development of human productivity, explosive population growth and increased absorption of natural resources caused the habitat of wild animals to be destroyed and the living space to be compressed, resulting in a serious decline in the number of tigers in a short time.

South China Tiger South China Tiger used to be the most important tiger in China, but now there are no wild individuals. We all know the reason why it disappeared. It was completely strangled by human beings. At that time, the human world developed rapidly, and under the influence of deforestation and reclamation, the number of wild animals decreased sharply. Food-deficient tigers soon targeted humans and livestock, so? Man-tiger conflict? Reached the peak of history.

This may be seen from many stories circulating in that era, such as 1952, a tiger in Leiyang County injured 32 people in one day, or 1957, in a village at the southern foot of Xuefeng Mountain in Hunan Province? Baihuwei village? , all reflect the number of South China tigers at that time, and? Man-tiger conflict? The contradiction is huge.

It is in this context that all parts of the country? Tiger trouble? A large number of serious areas have been set up? Tiger? The target is directed at the South China Tiger (of course, other large predators such as the leopard and the Northeast Tiger have also been greatly affected). Under the wanton killing of people, the number of South China tigers decreased sharply and soon disappeared in the wild.

In the early 1950s, there were still many South China tigers in China, as can be seen from 1956 tiger skins collected nationwide 1750. By the 1970s, there were only 40-80 South China tigers in many places.

A photo of tigers from all over the country.

After the 1980s, the number of South China tigers decreased further, from 40-80 to 30-80. Only in the inaccessible, primitive and wild ungulates forests can a small number of South China tigers be found. Because as a large predator in the forest system, tigers have higher requirements for the range of activities. A South China tiger needs at least 70 square kilometers of forest, where hundreds of large ungulates such as wild boar, deer and antelope live.

After the 1990 s, the South China Tiger was basically not seen in the whole country. Only in the deep forests at the junction of Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian can you find some tiger droppings and footprints. At this time, experts estimate that the number of wild South China tigers is less than 30.

At the beginning of the 20th century, many investigation teams were set up to look for traces of wild South China tigers, but they failed every time. By 20 12, IUCN listed the South China Tiger as a wild extinction in the Red List of Endangered Species.

South China tiger reared artificially

Northeast Tiger Today, the Northeast Tiger has the largest number of wild tigers in China, about 30, which is less than a fraction of the number of Russian wild tigers. But if we go forward for two centuries, the situation will be the opposite.

Is the fate of Northeast Tiger the same as that of South China Tiger in history? Rough? /kloc-At the end of 0/9, there were a large number of tigers living in the northeast of China, about 2,000, while there were only about 800 in Russia at this time. The time when the fate of the Northeast Tiger really changed dramatically was in the 20th century. Generally speaking, it can be divided into two parts, representing their similar experiences in the two countries.

In the first half of the 20th century, Russia hunted tigers crazily, including many soldiers. Almost every year, about 150 Siberian tigers are killed, resulting in a sharp decline in the number of tigers in Russia. By the 1930s, according to the survey records, it was estimated that there were only 20-30 wild tigers in Russia.

Of course, because the habitats of Siberian tigers in Russia and China are connected, and there is no boundary in the eyes of wild animals, at the beginning, in addition to the hunted number, many Siberian tigers fled to China, so during the period from the end of 19 to the 1930s, we can see an interesting phenomenon, that is, the number of Siberian tigers in China also showed a certain upward trend.

Russian soldiers kill Siberian tigers.

From 65438 to 0947, Russia finally realized the importance of tigers and began to protect them vigorously. However, at this time, China's attitude towards the Northeast Tiger was similar to that before Russia. Therefore, after entering the second half of the 20th century, China wantonly killed the Northeast Tiger, resulting in a serious decline in its population. Of course, during this period, a large number of clever Siberian tigers went to live in Russia.

With the supplement of China tigers, Russian tigers rose rapidly in a short time, and by the beginning of 2 1 century, they had recovered to 500, but by that time, the number of Northeast tigers in China had dropped to double digits.

Siberian tiger

Since Xinjiang tiger entered modern times, although the number of individuals of most large animals has decreased, which is related to human hunting, Xinjiang tiger is no exception, but the main reason for its extinction is the sudden change of environment.

As mentioned earlier, Xinjiang Tiger's habitat is in Tarim Basin, Zhungeer Basin and its surrounding areas, and it is one of the driest areas in Asia, with annual rainfall less than 50 mm. What is the concept? According to the data released by the China Meteorological Bureau, the rainfall in the southern coastal area is 2000mm, even the annual rainfall in some arid areas in the northwest is 100-200mm, so you can imagine how dry it is if it is less than 50 mm..

Scenery in Tarim basin

Ecosystems that are generally short of water are basically fragile and are greatly influenced by a single factor. Before19th century, Tarim River was a magnificent river, nourished by Tarim River and Lop Nur, where most creatures, including Xinjiang tigers, could thrive.

Historically, the distribution range of Xinjiang tigers is basically the same as that of Xinjiang water system, mainly concentrated in Tarim River basin, Peacock River basin, Ili River basin and the surrounding areas of Lop Nur. The regularity of habitat is seriously fragmented, and there is no ecological corridor between populations, so it is impossible to communicate.

Historical distribution map of Xinjiang tiger

The period when Xinjiang tigers disappeared in large numbers mainly concentrated in 1899- 196 1 year, which is consistent with the exploration records left by many explorers and the changes of Xinjiang environment.

For example, 192 1 year, a tributary of the Tarim River gradually became the mainstream under the influence of rain erosion, quicksand accumulation and other factors, which led to the northward diversion of the Tarim River, which directly led to the depletion of water resources in the original downstream area, the rapid deterioration of the environment and the death of a large number of wild animals. How do Xinjiang tigers who live here escape?

At the beginning of the 20th century, although there were no tigers in many places in Xinjiang, there were still many tigers in southern Xinjiang, mainly because the climate in southern Xinjiang was warmer, the rainfall was more, and there were large areas of forests for tigers to inhabit. However, after the 1920s, it has been difficult to find the trail of Xinjiang tiger in the whole Tarim River basin.

After the 1960s, there were no tigers in Xinjiang. Although there are sightings from time to time, most of them lack direct evidence and cannot be studied, so experts estimate that the Xinjiang tiger has become extinct at this time.

Predation map of Xinjiang tiger

At present, the number of tiger subspecies in China is still the highest in the world, that is, there are still four kinds of tigers after the extinction of Xinjiang tiger, and it is also the only country with four kinds of tigers, but if we look at the number of wild individuals, it will not rank. So how many wild tigers are there in China today?

Last year? World Tiger Day? At that time, experts gave a data, 27! Is the number of wild Siberian tigers in China. Of course, this is a conservative estimate. Counting the wild tigers wandering on the Sino-Russian border, the number is about 30, plus Bengal tigers and Indosinian tigers on the southwest border, the real number of wild tigers in China is about 35-50, not more than 50.

Siberian tiger

From the distribution range, Xinjiang tiger has been extinct, and the wild South China tiger has been extinct, so the tiger subspecies that still exist in China are Northeast tiger, Bengal tiger and Indochina tiger. At present, the distribution of Siberian tigers in China is very small, and only a small amount exists in the northeastern mountainous areas, namely the eastern mountainous areas of Heilongjiang Province and Jilin Province.

The specific situation is that the Northeast Tiger in Jilin is only distributed in the dense vegetation belt at the border between Heilongjiang and Russia, while the Northeast Tiger in Heilongjiang is distributed in the east of Wandashan, Laoyeling and the south of Zhangguangcailing, and the number is extremely rare. Bengal tigers and Indo-Chinese tigers only lived in the southwest border from beginning to end, but compared with the historical distribution, their habitats have been greatly reduced now.

Distribution map of Siberian tigers on the Sino-Russian border

So far, the most promising tiger subspecies in China is the Siberian tiger. At present, the protection and species restoration plan of the Northeast Tiger has achieved initial results, especially the establishment of the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, which indicates that the protection of the Northeast Tiger has entered a new era. The first batch of sika deer released in the northeast survived well and formed a population, so there is no shortage of living space for Siberian tigers in China at present, but it is limited by the small base of tigers and low reproductive capacity.