What Are Others Saying About
Living with Tigers?

The attempt to teach zoo-born tigers to live on their own in the wild, and to do so in Africa is opposed by some tiger conservationists. Here are a few voices from others in the conservation community. Those comments are followed by responses from Dave Salmoni of this project:

Gus Mills, head of South Africa's Endangered Wildlife Trust Carnivore Conservation Group. (Gus and his organization have requested that we note unequivocally that they "do not in any way support this tiger project.")

"The big concern I have over the project … is they are planning to release into the wild a species that is exotic, that doesn't occur in that ecosystem. And I think as a basic principle in conservation, we should only conserve animals that are indigenous to the area. …

"From a principle basis it is just wrong to set aside a large area and conserve it with an exotic species. Why don't you also then bring in kangaroos and some bears and you could have a real nice mix that ... some people might think is attractive? But certainly from a conservation point of view it doesn't have any value. Because conservation is really about conserving animals in their natural ecosystem.

"I think the chances of tigers going extinct in the wild in the next 50 years are really quite small. There's a lot of attention, a lot of conservation work being done in Asia on tigers. And although there are still big problems … problems are being tackled and in some areas they're being successfully addressed."

Dave Salmoni response:
"The unfortunate reality is that tiger conservation in Asia is in a disturbing state. The problems facing the tiger are ones that cannot be overcome at a whim. We would be acting unethically if we started introducing tigers into an area that has not yet solved its conflicts with the tiger. Therefore, a project like this needs to take seed in another country. Once a working model for tiger conservation is established it is then possible to motivate decision makers to begin to start rectifying the problems the tiger faces.

"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."

Lee Berger, anthropologist and paleontologist working in South Africa:

"Is it right or wrong to save these species wherever we can? My gut feel as a human is, absolutely. My answer as a scientist is that we have to use measures that are both sensitive to the environments we're putting animals in, while at the same time are conscious of the situation where these animals come from. ...

"We can make mistakes as humans. … There are plenty of cases where we've introduced species that weren't indigenous to the area that have caused huge destruction in that area. On the other hand, there are plenty of cases where moving animals out of their indigenous habitats into areas that have greater protection have effectively saved those species from extinction.

"What's the right answer? Every person, every conservationist, every individual, has to answer for themselves."

Dave Salmoni response:
"Dr. Berger makes the point that we are all responsible for the decisions we make. We have taken a bold step in our conservation methodology and will ultimately be responsible for whatever happens as a result of it. If we as individuals sit back and watch the tiger vanish from the wild than we must take our share of the blame for not trying everything that we possibly could to help stop it."