HARBIN: The Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, is now organizing a study on the psychology and behaviour of the more than 500 tigers in the park, the country's largest batch of artificially raised Siberian tigers, which are also known as Northeast tigers.

The study has been assisted by experts from the Psychology Department at Peking University, Wang Ligang, director of the park, told China Daily.

He said they hope to come up with systemic knowledge of how the artificially raised tigers develop in comparison to their wild counterparts.

"Thus we can carry out some necessary skills training to enable them to survive in their natural environment."

"After all, our final aim is to release them back into the wild," he said.

According to Professor Wang, psychological experts applied some 70 behavioural categories, usually used to describe human behaviour, to illustrate that of the tigers.

"For example, if a tiger is always interested in new things or objects around it, we will put it into the 'curious' category," Liu Dan, chief engineer of the park, told China Daily.

"If it always bullies the others and appears to be inviolable, we label it as 'aggressive'," he said.

Keepers in the park, who have the closest relationships with the tigers, have helped decide what categories the tigers should be placed in.

"This knowledge will help us feed them better and prepare them for life in the wild," he said.

"The aggressive, curious and active types are top of the list to be relocated to larger reserves," he said.

However, Liu said there is still a long way to go before the Siberian tigers in the park can return to the wild.

"Artificially raised Siberian tigers already differ a lot from wild tigers, in physique, strength, hunting techniques and even mating habits," he said.

(China Daily 08/02/2005 page3)