'I want these cubs to be raised in the wild by their mother, as wild tigers'
John Varty, filmmaker, conservationist and co-owner of Londolozi Private Game Reserve, has a new white tiger in his family.
Varty, a maverick naturalist who set up his South African tiger conservation project amid much controversy more than 10 years ago, says he despaired after visiting India and China and seeing how little was being done to save the iconic big cats.
The latest additions to his big-cat family were born to Julie, an 11-year-old Bengal tigress at his Tiger Canyons conservation project in the heart of the Karoo. The litter saw his tiger population grow from 12 to 17 overnight. Among the new arrivals was one tiny white cub - the first white tiger born in the wild since 1951. The births have made Tiger Canyons possibly the only place in the world where wild tigers are increasing in number.
Its current population of 17 is also probably more than the number remaining in the flagship Indian tiger reserve of Ranthambhore, where attrition due to habitat loss, poaching and the diminishing numbers of prey species has taken its toll.
Varty believes tigers will only survive in reserves that are properly fenced - to keep people out as much as to keep the tigers in - and stocked with prey. And whether those reserves are in Asia or Africa, Australia or the US doesn't matter, he says.
"I am a doer rather than a talker," he says. "I attended tiger conservation conferences around the world and got frustrated. There was lots of talking, but little doing. Tigers continued to die. Twenty or thirty years ago there were probably 10000 tigers in Asia. Today that number is 1000, maybe fewer."
A steady stream of visitors already make their way to Tiger Canyons, even though no real tourist infrastructure exists. The star of the show, Julie, whom Varty brought from a US zoo 11 years ago, was reintroduced to the wild, along with her brother Ron, in the first successful rehabilitation of captive-bred tigers into the wild.
Varty and US biologist and big-cat handler Dave Salmoni spent hours, weeks, months and years teaching the two tigers how to hunt and fend for themselves. Salmoni is currently surrogate father to three cubs born to another tigress, Shadow, in January this year. Julie's two four-year-old sons from an earlier litter, who have never had close human contact, roam the far reaches of the reserve.
Tigers have only four teats and within hours of birth there is fierce competition for milk. By the age of four weeks each cub will demand at least a litre of milk from their mother daily - a tough ask.
"If any mother can do it, Julie can," says Varty. " She's a great hunter and a great mother. We won't interfere with nature now. If some of the cubs fall by the wayside, so be it. I want these cubs to be raised in the wild by their mother, as wild tigers."
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