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Comments

by Jesus on 02/25/2010 08:15 am

Correct me if I'm wrong - and it's very possible I am - but weren't Korean tigers different from, say, Siberian tigers? My understanding was that the Korean "breed" of tigers is extinct. If so, this article is just talking about bringing new tigers to Korea and pretending they're the same as the old ones.

by korea-beat on 02/25/2010 11:26 am http://us.asiancorrespondent.com/korea-beat

True, but it also says they're nearly the same genetically. I think it would be great to re-introduce them, but there needs to be habitat for them first.

by surprises aplenty on 02/25/2010 05:37 pm

"At 1pm on the 9th of this month Green Korea Untied (녹색연합) will hold a ‘tiger conservation debate"

As you posted this on the 25th, which month is it? Sorry for the grammar-police thing; I am honestly curious about the result of the meeting.

by Anonymous on 03/01/2010 07:00 pm

It's been a couple of years since I was last in Korea, but when I was last there I remember there being a lack of widlife.

I'm curious as to how the tigers would survive. What would they eat?

by Living in Korea on 05/09/2010 09:50 pm

Lack of wildlife? I guess the deer crossing signs on every major highway outside of Seoul are wishful thinking? I have photos of Roe deer that I took on Jeju Island from about 15 feet away. Granted, they would have to be pretty active kitties given the small size of the deer here. I would be more worried about Korean hikers becoming a snack due to the HUGE mountain hiking culture. Not a problem in the DMZ, however... btw, the majority of the mountainous areas(and it's a very mountainous peninsula) in South Korea are government owned and protected. I wasn't aware that deforestation was a problem. Have any of you actually lived in Korea? Sorry to hate but I was looking for some useful information on the subject but instead I ended up here....

by Anonymous on 08/17/2010 03:43 pm

The Korean Tiger is a different sub-species from the ones in China or Siberia. So even if tigers would immigrate again into Korea, it would not be the same sub-species.
The Korean Tiger seems to be extinct, except for some claims of sightings in the DMZ between North and South Korea.

Nevertheless, it would be a great achievement to have that great predator back in Korea.

by Anonymous on 08/26/2010 01:30 pm

There is a huge lack of wildlife in Korea. I have lived here for over two years now. I regularly visit mountains in and out of Seoul. In the two years that I have been here, I have seen ONE squirrel in the mountains. That's it. Deer are pretty much non existant. The only place I have seen actual deer is in Seoul Forest, which is not really a forest, but a developed park. The deer there are fenced in. There are deer near the DMZ, only because it is so cut off from human intervention, save thousands of landmines. The most abundant wildlife you will see sadly, are the pigeons that crowd the sidewalks in Seoul. Tigers would definitely not survive naturally if people made a protected reservation. All kinds of things would have to be reintroduced for the ecosystem to function properly. Then there's the fact that most forested areas in Korea are never far away from civilizaion. I think bringing the tiger back here would be highly problematic, dangerous,irresponsible, and not beneficial to anything except for some tourists that want to see a tiger in the wild. The tigers they want to bring back to Korea are NOT Korean.

Now, if tigers naturally come to the DMZ, that's a different story. Some tigers have been spotted there, but there is still no photographic or video evidence has been taken. However, if the tigers do come to Korea naturally and the DMZ was cleaned up one day after a Reunified Korea, that would be the best option for creating a tiger sanctuary.

by Anonymoi on 08/26/2010 03:18 pm

@ Anonymous 08/26/2010 01:30 pm

"mountains in and out of Seoul" I'm not exactly sure where you've been but you're obviously going to the wrong places. To see wildlife in Korea you don't go to the overcrowded mountain trails and national parks... instead you head up tiny backroads (when the road stops, small trails usually start) in less populated provinces like Gangwon-do and Gyeongsangbuk-do. I lived in those areas for two years and came across wildlife on countless numbers of occasions. I've seen tons of water-birds, scavenging-birds, chipmunks, squirrels and deer in these areas (not to mention the introduced pests like rabbits and wild pigs). Hell, driving at night in these areas is dangerous because of the number of wildlife (I've been in a bus that cleaned up a stag, and in my friends car when he clipped a doe). My suggestion is that you get out of Seoul and Gyeonggi-do if you want to see the real natural side of Korea.

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