An eye for tigers
REFORMED FASHION industry hotshot Li Quan has a quirky side. Save China's Tigers' spacious headquarters at the top of a converted warehouse near the Tower of London contains little except an indoor ski slope shaped like a mountain - and several cats.
The star feline is Darwin the Persian who rolls on the floor, bringing a smile to its brightly clad owner and in other parts of the room can be found two more Persian cats - Black Smoke and Dada. Embroidered into the design of Li's rug is a cheetah, a leopard, a tiger and a lion. There are also a number of tiger ornaments - including a cuddly toy tiger astride a massage chair.
There's no doubt Li's a feline fanatic. But she is particularly partial to one species - the tiger. And not just any old tiger. Forget the glory-grabbing Siberian variety that made news this month when, for the first time, one was caught on film in the Hunchun nature reserve in north-east China's Jilin province. Consider another lesser-known variety whose profile is rising thanks to Li's campaigning and creative thinking: the South China tiger.
That animal could yet become as well-loved as the panda if Li succeeds in her drive to have it adopted as the mascot for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. 'There's no other animal, no other symbol better than the tiger,' Li argues, pointing to its dynamism and athleticism.
She adds that the tiger's spirit is central to Chinese culture. Traditional Chinese paintings have been inspired by this 'king of the forest', as the Chinese call the animal that, for several thousand years, commanded reverential respect. Also in its favour is its primeval prowess. Considered the mother of all tigers, it originated on the mainland two million years ago, Li claims. And yet, she laments, before she began campaigning, hardly anyone knew how endangered it was.
She only found out in the wake of a 1997 visit to a national park in Zambia, that fired her interest in big-cat conservation. Li approached China's Forestry Commission and offered to join the fight to save the Siberian tiger. The commission told her that if she really wanted to be useful she should try saving the neglected South China tiger: a tough task because there are, at most, 30 confined to isolated mountainous areas in southern China such as Hunan, and a further 60 in zoos, all of them on the mainland.