"In choosing a location for a tiger sanctuary, that will be positioned outside the tiger's natural habitat, we had to be careful to not be invading an otherwise healthy ecosystem. The sanctuary was developed on farms that had become unviable for grazing domestic stock. Poor farming techniques had lead them to a state in which no healthy ecosystem could exist. The initial challenge that we faced was, and still is a rehabilitation of a large tract of land back to a healthy state. The tiger acted as a 'flagship species,' which enabled the re-introduction of countless species back into the area. The intention has never been to release tigers randomly into the wilds of Africa. Despite the size of the sanctuary, it is a controlled environment, the only difference being the tiger as apex predator.

"In my opinion, if I were given the choice to save the tiger in Africa or see it vanish from the earth, I would choose Africa. Saving the tiger in Africa is not the goal of the project. We hope to use the sanctuary as a model for conservation in Asia.

"Gus Mills' opinion of the state of the tiger seems to be contradictory to the census data. The reality of tigers numbers in the wild and the state of their decline is quite clear."

John Seidensticker, chairman of the Save The Tiger Fund Council, and senior scientist at the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C.:

"I've heard many justifications with this project … (but) the conservation community is pretty much opposed to this. It's diverting funds that could be used otherwise.

"Our definition of conservation is securing a place for wild tigers where they live, not a place in Texas or South Africa. There are a lot of people who spent their lives, sometimes at great risk of themselves, to work on (tiger conservation). It is going to be a story, this whole thing, about how to not do conservation."

Dave Salmoni response:
"Mr. Seidensticker's goals and directives for tiger conservation are important and valid. We, naturally, share the same goals. However, we believe that there may be more than one way up the mountain. Tiger conservation should be about saving the species and not about disagreements on the semantics of how to get there."