D6101

Chinese New Year

Year of the Tiger

South China Tiger

Cover Announcement 

My individually hand painted cachet depicts a South China Tiger sitting by a stand of bamboo. It is a subspecies that may be extinct in the wild since no individual has been officially recorded since the late 1980s. In the late 1990s, low widespread prey density and massive habitat loss made continued survival uniikely.

In the 1950s, the wild South China Tiger population was reported to be more than 4,000. They then became the target of uncontrolled hunting by the goverrment to facilitate large scale human relocation. By 1982 only 150 to 200 individuals uere estimated in the wild. At the turn of the century there may have been a few still in the wild. Local people had reported tracks and sightings in the Qizimei Mountains and in the Yihuang section of Jiangxi Province. In 2007 the body of an Asian black bear and the attack on a cow, both in Zhenping County, were attributed to a tiger.

China does plan to reintroduce the South China Tiger to the wild using a breeding program from the captive population.

For now, I'm happy to present this wonderlul rendition of a dominant wiid cat watching over his domain. The South China Tiger - Collins #D6101 at $18.50.