1246 Return to Mother Nature (2/2)

People didn't think that the project would work at first, as these five tigers had been born and raised in zoos, and there were no tigresses around to teach the cubs how to hunt and fight. When they first reached the reserve, they were afraid of the smallest breeze. How could they return to nature and survive there in the long term?

Besides, everyone knew that tigers lived in the forests and not on the flat plains. Wasn't there a saying that ”tigers in Pingyang get bullied by dogs”?

These few South Chinese tigers would most likely just get bullied by the local wild dogs in the African plains and wouldn't be able to survive at all, and the entire project would just become a laughingstock.

But the project was surprisingly successful. By 2017, the number of South Chinese tigers in the Tiger Reserve had grown to 17.

Everyone had belittled the survival capabilities of the South Chinese tigers. Just as Michael Crichton said in Jurassic Park, ”Life finds a way.”

The most surprising thing was that these 17 tigers had actually changed their habits and became colonized animals. They had grouped themselves together, hunting for the large herbivores of the land.

As for being bullied by wild dogs… It had been proven that that was just an unfounded worry. In reality, the group of tigers was even chasing the domestic lions out of their own lands…

Tigers, being from mountainous forests, had larger hearts than lions, had stronger hind limb strength, enabling them to stand on two legs, and were able to jump three meters high. They could slap and were even able to climb trees, even if there weren't many trees to climb on the plains.

They bullied the lion prides on the plains, climbed the trees to steal the cheetahs' food, and became one of the scariest predators in Africa, bringing much hope to their future!

The only regret was that this project wasn't headed by the Chinese government, and it had now landed in the hands of other organizations to keep it going. These South Chinese tigers might never be able to return to China.

That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. China's natural habitats were no longer suitable for South Chinese tigers to stay in. Even if they were brought back to China, they could only keep them in zoos. It would be better to just leave them there as a spark of hope that one day might be able to light up the whole plains.

The survival tactics of fennec foxes were similar to these South Chinese tigers. With the harsh survival conditions of the desert, it was like an extremely difficult RPG boss. No matter how strong one person was, they wouldn't be able to kill it by themselves. Only in a party would there be a chance of victory. This was why other foxes were solitary, while only fennec foxes were colonized.

Wei Kang and the rest raised their binoculars as they watched the foxes silently, afraid that they might scare them.

Right then, Zhang Zian nudged Wei Kang with his elbow, asking Wei Kang to watch further away, and patted Gao Ke's shoulder, asking him to move the camera.

Slightly further away, another small group of fennec foxes seemed to have popped out of nowhere, showing themselves suddenly. No one saw where they had come from. Maybe they had a nest near this sand dune.

The rest of them didn't know, but Zhang Zian knew that these fennec foxes were the foxes that had gotten away last night. Seeing that their leader and friends had come back after being missing for one whole night, they came out of their hiding place excitedly.

Seeing that the two groups were about to reunite successfully, the small group of foxes suddenly hesitated in their forward footsteps, watching the others carefully.

Wei Kang and the rest had guessed the reason correctly. These captured fennec foxes had the scent of humans on them, so the other foxes felt that it was something foreign.