The Bloody History of South China Tigers in Hong Kong

One of the great joys about hiking in Hong Kong is that you can find trails a little further away from the city that make you completely forget that you live in a sprawling metropolis of glass and steel.

Even the hikes that border our concrete jungle teem with unique wildlife like macaques, wild boars, snakes, porcupines and so much more! With such an abundance of rich biodiversity, I began to wonder why there was no apex predator in Hong Kong. Such a creature would certainly help to keep the populations of macaques and boars in check!

Turns out, there used to be a creature that fit the bill: The South China Tiger.

The historical range of the South China tiger extended over a vast area of approximately "1200 miles east to west, and almost 1000 miles north to south in southern China." This included provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi, and parts of Hong Kong. The South China Tiger thrived in wet forests with dense vegetation that provided ample cover for stalking prey.

The South China tiger, also known as the 'Chinese' or 'Amoy' tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis), is characterized by several unique anatomical features and behaviors that distinguish it from other tiger subspecies.

One of the most notable features about the South China Tiger is that it is the world’s second-smallest tiger species. Only the Sumatran Tiger is smaller, likely due to insular dwarfism. Male South China Tigers typically measure between 230 to 265 cm in length and weigh between 110 to 175 kg. Females are slightly smaller, measuring 220 to 240 cm and weighing around 100 to 115 kg.

In terms of appearance, the coat is lighter and more yellowish than that of other tiger subspecies with a paler belly and facial features. White spots are also visible on the back of the ears. The South China Tiger has a higher concentration of narrower and sharper-edged stripes and a relatively larger skull with closer set eyes than other tiger species.

The diet of South China Tigers include species such as wild boar, muntjac deer, hog deer, sambar deer, and occasionally smaller animals like hares and peafowl. In Hong Kong, muntjac deer and wild boars, especially, are quite abundant; certainly enough to support a small population of tigers.

Unfortunately, these large cats seemed to also have quite the propensity to consume humans.

Between the years 48 A.D. and 1953, over 10,000 individuals were either killed or injured by tigers across four provinces in South China: Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Guangdong (which is where Hong Kong is).

This information is based on records from the Ancient Books Collection at Fujian Normal University, as analyzed by Chris Coggins in his 2003 publication, The Tiger and the Pangolin: Nature, Culture and Conservation in China.

So, while humans were certainly not a major part of the South China Tiger’s staple diet, there was also a non-zero chance that a person could be killed and consumed by these powerful predators.

There are no South China Tigers in Hong Kong any longer, nor do they visit from Mainland China. As the world’s most critically endangered tiger species, the wild population is far too depleted for tigers to be spotted in and around Hong Kong these days.

The city’s once-abundant forests and wilderness has been changed to incorporate more high rises and farmland, making Hong Kong unsuitable for tigers.

This doesn’t mean that tigers never existed in Hong Kong. Far from it, in fact!

1. 1893- Boy "Carried Off" by Tiger: Three tigers spotted on opposite Shau Kei Wan and a boy was reportedly “carried off” from a village by a tiger.
2. 1911 - Tiger Swims to Lamma Island or Stanley: Reports indicate that a tiger swam to Lamma Island or Stanley (reports vary), where it preyed on cattle. This early documented encounter highlighted the presence of tigers in the region and their ability to swim long distances.
3. 1914 – Paw Prints at The Peak: Tiger paw prints were found just a few yards away from Chief Justice Sir William Rees-Davies’ house up in the Peak District, as was written in the Hong Kong Telegraph.
4. 1915 - Attack on Policemen: In one of the most infamous incidents, a tiger killed two policemen in Sheung Shui. Constable Ruttan Singh died instantly from his wounds, while his colleague Ernest Goucher succumbed to injuries three days later. Following the attack, reinforcements hunted down the tiger, which was eventually shot and displayed at City Hall. Prior to this incident, Hong Kong colonial policemen believed tales of tigers to be fabricated by locals, citing “the Chinese propensity for exaggeration,” notes a South China Morning Post newspaper report from the time.
5. 1916 - Peak Tram Incident: A tiger's roar terrified commuters on the Peak Tram, illustrating the ongoing presence of these big cats near populated areas and contributing to public fear.
6. 1926 - Captured Tiger Incident in Shatin: A British police officer stopped two farmers who were transporting a live tiger in a cage in Shatin. The tiger was intended for exhibition at Lee Gardens but died shortly after due to injuries sustained to its paw during capture. This incident highlighted the challenges faced by tigers even when captured.
7. 1934 - Tiger Attacks and Kills Village Pigs: Four pigs attacked and killed by a tiger in Lo Wai Village, Tsuen Wan. The attacks were verified by a police officer who was "certain it was either a leopard or a tiger judging from the marks of the teeth on the sides of the two young pigs’ necks."
8. 1935 - Tiger Fought off by Old Woman: An account in Hong Kong Naturalist, 1935 has an interview with a woman who fought off a tiger by swatting it with her grass-cutting pole.
9. 1936 - Mutilated Calves: A news report cited that two calves had been mutilated by tigers near Ching Lung Village on March 9th. The report states that only the head and legs of the calves remained.
10. 1937 - Woman Consumed: Witnesses reported an unusually large cat that allegedly consumed a woman whole, leaving only blood stains on the mountainside. This chilling account added to the lore surrounding tiger encounters in Hong Kong.
11. 1942 - Stanley Internment Camp Tiger: During World War II, guards at the Stanley Internment Camp spotted and killed a male tiger that had been seen roaming around the camp for weeks. Geoffrey Charles Emerson documented this event, noting that after its death, one of the internees, Bertram Walter Bradbury, who had previously worked as a butcher, was brought out of the camp to skin the tiger. The skin was later displayed at Tin Hau Temple in Stanley, while the meat was served to officials from the Hong Kong Race Club who described the meat to be as “tender and delicious as beef.”.
12. Various Accounts - Coolie Incident: One particularly gruesome (alleged) account involved a coolie who was found partially devoured by a tiger, underscoring the real dangers posed by these predators to local communities.
13. 1965 - Last Tiger Hunt: The hunt for a South China tiger in Hong Kong occurred in 1965 at Shing Mun, in the shadow of Tai Mo Shan, when a high school girl saw "a tiger stalking through the nearby undergrowth.” Police searched the hills extensively, with villagers in the area confirming tiger sightings over the next few weeks. No tiger was officially found.
14. 1970s - Unverified Sightings: There were occasional reports of suspected tiger sightings until the late 1970s, indicating that some individuals may have still been present in remote areas of Hong Kong.

In the 1950s, the South China Tiger population is estimated to have numbered around 4,000. By the 1980s, the South China Tiger was pretty much extinct in the wild.

While this article focuses mainly on Hong Kong’s South China Tigers, the vast majority of the population lived out in Mainland China in provinces like Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and Jiangxi.

In the 1950s, the newly formed Chinese Communist Party launched what were known as “anti-pest” campaigns, in which people were encouraged to eradicate any animals that encumbered agricultural efficiency.

The South China Tiger was targeted under this scheme and according to Coggins, “work teams would pursue tigers into the mountains and kill them with guns and grenades during this period.”

In addition, “animals that posed a threat to grain crops were trapped, shot, and poisoned by the thousands.”

Because of rampant tiger hunting in Mainland China, it was noted by author John Saeki in his book titled, “The Last Tigers of Hong Kong,” that after the 1940s, tiger sightings and attacks rose in Hong Kong as the tigers trekked further away from their traditional hunting grounds.

There was also a wave of immigration around this time with some 200,000 people moving to Hong Kong from China. With more rural land being taken up by the growing populace of local residents, tiger-human encounters grew in frequency.

The tigers also found that sneaking into Hong Kong’s rural areas to nab some livestock was a great way to source an easy meal. Occasionally, they’d grab a person as well.

By this point, the Hong Kong colonial government had finally decided that tigers were a real threat, and not some fabrication by local farmers. To retaliate, the government encouraged people to hunt Hong Kong's big cats, even going as far as to urge young men to “bag” themselves a tiger, according to Saeki.

In addition, British trophy hunters, such as William Lord Smith, decided that hunting tigers was good sport and brought prestige.

The hunting of South China Tigers started well before the ‘50s and beyond, though.

A missionary from America named Harry Caldwell claims to have killed some 48 tigers in the 1910s and 1920s in the southern Chinese province of Fujian. He wrote a memoir called “Blue Tiger,” in which he describes how killing tigers that terrorized local villagers furthered his ability to spread Christianity throughout southern China.

In one case, after he shot a tiger that had devoured a 16-year-old boy, he wrote, “the killing of that beast turned almost an entire village Christian.”

Caldwell revealed through his writings that the villagers were fascinated by the power of his gun and felt that it was worth worshipping a god that could create a weapon of such power.

Many people blame Caldwell for the rapid demise of the South China Tiger because he proved to villagers that the tigers could be killed. Before his arrival, the tiger was seen as a supernatural being in rural parts of China, especially the mythical blue tiger, upon which his book is named. Once this illusion was broken, tigers were hunted to a larger degree and with more success by villagers.

Because of continual hunting of South China Tigers throughout the 1900s, the World Wildlife Fund estimated in the 1980s that there were only between 30-80 South China tigers left in the wild.

China banned the hunting of tigers in 1979, giving them full protection under the law, and established several tiger reserves, but it was already too late for the species.

At present, it is likely that the South China Tiger exists only in captivity with no wild individuals left, though tales do still occasionally emanate from the more rural forested areas of China.

Even if a small population of wild tigers exist, the population would likely be functionally extinct.

In captivity, a tiny population of around 150 (numbers vary across sources) South China Tigers still exist. However, due to a small gene pool “derived from six wild-caught founders, [the captive stock] is genetically impoverished with low reproductive output.” Still, the Chinese government has expressed its intent to reintroduce a small population of South China tigers into a portion of their historic range as part of a larger goal to recover wild tiger populations in China.

The aim is to have a population of 15–20 tigers living in a minimum of 1000 km2 of habitat. It will be the first tiger reintroduction program in the world!

Here’s to hoping that the legacy of the incredible South China Tiger will not just be relegated to wild tales and roaring stories of the past.