COURT DISMISS NSPCA APPEAL AGAINST TIGER REWILDING PROJECT

Press Release

(May 30, 2008 London) In a judgment handed down in Bloemfontein today, the Supreme Court of Appeal rejected an appeal by the NSPCA (National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelties to Animals) against the refusal of the Bloemfontein High Court to interdict Peter Openshaw -a former reserve manager of the Chinese Tigers South Africa Trust, who was in charge of the rewilding training of South China Tigers at Laohu Valley Reserve near Philippolis.

The SCA judgment was to the effect that the NSPCA had not made out a case on the court papers to warrant such an interdict. It also held the NSPCA liable to pay Openshaw's legal costs.

The court noted that the Chinese Tigers South African Trust runs a project aimed at saving South China tigers, the most endangered subspecies of tiger, from extinction.

Captive born South China tigers, from zoos in China, are being rewilded in the natural environment at Laohu Valley Reserve. The South China Tiger is the ancestral subspecies to all other tiger subspecies and fewer than 100 remain, mostly in zoos in China.

Li Quan, founder of Save China’s Tigers which runs the project through its South African operational arm, welcomed the judges’ decision “We are concerned that donor money has not been properly spent by the NSPCA on genuine issues of animal abuses, and the NSPCA is not doing what the public has mandated it to do.”

Quan thanked the many South Africans who have expressed support of the Trust’s efforts, saying: “We undertook this conservation program in South Africa to fast-track the re-wilding process by using South Africa’s esteemed conservation scientists and experienced wildlife managers. We are saddened that the NSPCA’s compassion for animals does not extend to those that are critically endangered like the South China Tiger. We take pride in our South African reserve’s achievements including the recent births of three healthy cubs for the first ever time outside of China”.