2021年4月，在中國東北的一個偏遠村莊，一隻老虎咬了一位村民，並損壞了一輛汽車。這次襲擊讓也很多人懷疑保護工作是否做得過頭了。
大家好，我是Kyle Obermann，The China Current特約撰稿人，在這裡我會向您展示「野性中國」。
老虎在中國歷來受到尊敬，在歷史文獻中與龍齊名，被視為威嚴和力量的象徵。但光環下通常也帶來了黑暗的一面：對牠們的恐懼以及為了製造傳統中藥所造成的偷獵。
儘管華南虎在20世紀初仍然在香港的山上出沒，但這個亞種僅存的幾個後代如今只存在於動物園中。但在北方，在中國與俄羅斯的邊界上，西伯利亞亞種老虎的數量正在增加。由於野外只剩下幾百隻西伯利亞虎，中國轉移了資源，加大力度以確保對該物種的保護。他們建立了一個由20,000多台紅外攝像機組成的網絡來研究該物種，同時還停止了公路和鐵路的建設！
現在，在新建的東北虎豹國家公園內，這些相機自動捕捉並將照片上傳到雲端的AI物種識別系統。這是世界上最大的同類實時遠程監控系統。正因如此，中國現在可以對其境內已確認的27個個體進行仔細觀察。
但是去年發生襲擊時，一些網民懷疑這種保護成果是否會造成更多的傷人事件。這類似於我們2021年報道的大象遷徙的故事，相比之下，大象的故事少了血腥，多了溫暖。
隨著老虎數量的增加，人與老虎的接觸可能也會增加。這就是為什麼在保護動物的同時，有必要為人類提供互補措施。這些措施包括為牲畜提供保險，為人們提供合理誘因，讓他們搬離野生棲息地和城市之間的中間地帶，並提高公眾意識，理解老虎作為頂級捕食者在生態系統中的價值。
雖然牠們只有幾百隻，而我們有70多億人，但也許我們會找到可以共存的空間。
In April 2021 in a remote village of northeast China, a tiger bit a villager and damaged a car. The attack left many wondering if conservation efforts were working too well.
Happy New Year and Year of the Tiger! Hi, I’m Kyle Obermann, Nature Contributor for the China Current, showing China’s wild side.
Tigers are historically revered in China, placed on par with dragons in historical texts and seen as symbols of majesty and power.
But the spotlight also came with a dark side: fear of their presence and poaching for traditional Chinese medicine.
Although the South China Tiger still roamed the hills of Hong Kong in the early 1900s, this subspecies’ last few remaining descendants now exist only in zoos.
But to the north, the numbers of the Siberian subspecies are now increasing on China’s border with Russia. With only a few hundred Siberian tigers left in the wild, China has diverted resources to ensure the protection of the species. They’ve created a network of over 20,000 infrared cameras to study the species, as well as stopping the construction of roads and rail lines!
Now, inside the newly created Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, these cameras automatically capture and upload photos onto a cloud-based AI species recognition system. This is the largest such real-time remote monitoring system in the world. And because of this, China now can take careful watch over the confirmed 27 individuals inside its borders.
But when the attack happened last year, some netizens wondered if such conservation gains would increasingly come back to bite humans. Similar to the 2021 migrating elephant story we covered previously but with less tusks and more teeth.
Human-tiger encounters are likely to increase as tiger numbers do. But this is why implementing complementary human-facing measures are also essential. These include insurance for livestock, offering fair incentives for people to move outside of intermediary zones between wild habitat and urban areas, and increasing public awareness of the tiger’s ecosystem value as an apex predator. There’s only a few hundred of them and over 7 billion of us. We can probably find room to share.
