CHINA: Tiger Kills Tourist At Ningbo Youngor Zoo

Tourists were evacuated from a zoo in eastern China following a fatal tiger attack on Sunday afternoon.
The victim, a young man, was snatched by the big cat at the Ningbo Youngor Zoo in Zhejiang province and dragged away under trees.

The rescue took more than an hour and the victim was pronounced dead at hospital.

Zoo visitors raised the alarm that a tourist had been hauled away at around 2:30pm after teasing a tiger.

The zoo was closed at 3pm while police and local forestry bureau staff arrived at the zoo at about 3:15pm.
The reports did not say how the victim, who was not named, ended up inside the tiger’s enclosure.

Zoo staff had tried to drive the tiger away with firecrackers, it said.

One witness said described the terrifying scene: “I saw the tiger mauling the person, whose face was covered with blood. Every time he sat up, the tiger pushed him down again.”

The victim was taken to hospital at around 3:45pm but was pronounced dead.

It is not the first time a tourist or zoo staff have been attacked by tigers in China. In July last year, a 57-year-old woman was mauled to death after trying to save her daughter from a tiger attack at a drive- through wildlife park in Beijing.

The woman’s daughter, in her 30s, who had left the safety of the car earlier, survived with multiple serious injuries to her arms and face.

The case raised a number of issues online. Some blamed the daughter, who first got out of the car in a restricted area of the zoo, for the tragedy, as the mother died trying to rescue her. Others questioned where the zoo’s security measures were sufficient for the visitors.

INDIA: Tigress T-5 Found Dead In Panna Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh

Tigress T-5 was found dead with injuries on her body in Madhya Pradesh's Panna Tiger Reserve on Saturday.

According to the Tiger Reserve administration, injuries on her body suggest that the animal may have died in a territorial fight with another big cat.

Tigress T-5 was one of the first big cats brought to the reserve in 2009 after the reserve had lost all of its tigers.

T-5 was brought here from Kanha Tiger Reserve.


Panna National Park is a national park located in Panna and Chhatarpur districts of Madhya Pradesh in India.

Among the animals found here are the tiger, leopard, chital, chinkara, nilgai, sambhar and sloth bear. The park is home to more than 200 species of birds including the bar-headed goose, honey buzzard, king vulture, blossom-headed parakeet, Changeable hawk-eagle and Indian vulture.

Combatting Wildlife Crime

Poaching is one of the most serious threats to wildlife in Asia and Africa, with too many forests devoid of the loud calls of gibbons, ecosystem engineering of Elephants, and the quite stalking of Tigers.

Those that are left are often isolated, poorly protected, and hold the last wild populations of some of the most endangered species in the world. Illegal wildlife trade is the fourth largest black market, and feeds directly into criminal and terrorist networks, which may fund other illegal activities.

At Global Wildlife Conservation, the approach to combatting wildlife crime is multi-faceted. In 2016, GWC became the newest member of the SMART Partnership. SMART, or the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool, helps wildlife rangers and managers around the world track and analyze illegal activities they observe during patrols.

The data helps them identify and address crime hotspots, ultimately benefiting threatened species such as Saola, Okapi, Elephant, Tiger and even turtles.

GWC’s Walter Steven Sechrest Endowment for Wildlife Protection protects endangered wildlife through anti-poaching efforts and by supporting wildlife rangers in parks around the globe. The endowment was established in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Steven Sechrest, late father of GWC Chief Scientist and CEO Wes Sechrest.

Steve protected the innocent throughout his life, and his legacy lives on in support of the world’s wildlife.

Project Goals
To provide the most effective tools to individuals enforcing anti-poaching laws. SMART helps bridge the gap between the sophistication of those involved in the illegal capture and trade of wildlife, and the number, skill level and motivation of wildlife authorities. SMART launched in 2013 and is now in its third release, which can be used for biological monitoring, fire monitoring and other protected area management needs in addition to law enforcement monitoring. The software is free, open source and up to date in 10 different languages.

To effectively engage with communities living with wildlife and around important areas for biodiversity, and to turn them into effective guardians of wildlife. GWC views communities as powerful allies in the conservation of biodiversity and strives to work with them to solve the problems that prevent them from being wildlife guardians.

To meet a Zero Loss goal for species such as the Saola. This means preventing poaching of any animals in GWC’s target areas—a lofty goal. GWC is part of the Zero Poaching partnership, which aims to provide governments and conservation organizations with a suite of best practice tools to holistically address the issues of poaching and trafficking. Useful tools and approaches exist across the Zero Poaching framework; a systematic approach to addressing all parts of the solution to poaching.

To improve park management in the most important sites for biodiversity around the world. Achieving zero poaching starts with good management. GWC is part of the Conservation Assured partnership, which is developing global protected area management standards. GWC strives to raise the level of protected area management effectiveness in all the sites where we work.

To provide training and support to rangers on the front lines. Rangers put their lives on the line, and their family life on hold, to protect the natural world. The much quoted International Ranger Federation statistic of 1,000 rangers killed in the line of duty over the past decade is horrific, but only starts to scratch the surface of the situation. Rangers receive little support, little training and are paid very little for a service that is vital to the future of biodiversity on our planet. For example, 42 percent of countries that employ rangers on temporary contracts do not provide any insurance benefits. GWC, with our partners, is committed to increasing ranger training, and improving their working and employment conditions. Check out the preliminary findings of a survey asking rangers about their insurance options

CHINA: China Businessman Jailed For 13 Years Over Tiger Feast

A Chinese businessman who bought and ate three tigers has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, state media reported Tuesday.

The wealthy real estate developer, identified only by his surname Xu, has "a special hobby of grilling tiger bones, boning tiger paws, storing tiger penis, eating tiger meat and drinking tiger blood alcohol," the official Xinhua news agency said in June when he went on trial.

Xu organised three separate trips last year for a total of 15 people, including himself, to Leizhou in the southern province of Guangdong, where they bought tigers for a "huge amount of money" that were killed and dismembered as they watched, the government-run news portal gxnews.com.cn reported Tuesday.

One of them filmed the entire process of a tiger slaughter with his mobile phone. The footage was later obtained by police.

Police seized eight pieces of animal meat and bones from a refrigerator in Xu's home, some of which were later identified as tiger parts, including a penis, the report said, adding that 16 geckos and a cobra were also found.

A court in Guangxi earlier this year convicted the 15 of "illegally transporting precious and endangered wild animal products" but the conviction was not reported at the time.

Xu was sentenced to 13 years in prison and a fine of 1.55 million yuan (US$25,000), gxnews.com.cn said, with the others jailed for terms between five and six and a half years, and given smaller fines.

They appealed and a higher court upheld the ruling on Monday, the report said.

Tiger bones have long been an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, supposedly for a capacity to strengthen the human body, and while they have been removed from its official ingredient list the belief persists among some.

It is a long-held belief across parts of Asia that penises of animals such as tigers and seals can boost men's sexual performance.

There is no orthodox scientific evidence for such claims.

Decades of trafficking and habitat destruction have slashed the tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to approximately 3,000, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species, where the tiger is classed as endangered.