Little Tiger Zhou

The Save China's Tigers Foundation launched an online poll yesterday to choose the name of the first South China Tiger born outside of China.

On the evening of 23 November, 2007, a tiger cub was born at a zoo in South Africa. It weighed 1.2 kilograms at the time, but has now grown to 7 kg, large enough to be given a name. Four South China Tigers in South Africa have been given names: Cathay and TigerWoods (the parents of the new cub), Hope, and Madonna.

The online poll, hosted by Sina, frowns on doubled syllables (like Jingjing and the Fuwa), requests that the names have something to do with the tiger's role in culture or history, and limits names to three characters.

According to the Beijing Times, as of yesterday evening, the top three names were Little Tiger Zhou (周小虎), Zhenglong (正龙), and Zhou Zhenglong (周正龙)—all valid names, and all inspired by the photographer who may have snapped a picture of a wild South China Tiger in Shaanxi.

Although the authorities have not yet issued an official verdict as to whether Zhou Zhenglong's photos are genuine, last week a team of grad students at the National University of Defense Technology in Hunan released a comprehensive analysis of the photos. The team concludes that the tiger in Zhou's photos is 99.86% identical to the one discovered on a wall hanging, sufficient to prove that Zhou's tiger was not three-dimensional. In answer to the objection that Zhou's tiger "blinked" in certain photos, the team convincingly demonstrates that any eye movement was simply the result of motion blur.

The Beijing Times reported that half of the top twenty names were related to the controversy over Zhou's tiger. Sadly, Sina has already removed them from the running.

Ultimately, the poll is just one resource that the Foundation and the State Forestry Bureau will use to pick a name. Considering that at the time of this writing, the front-runner is Xiao Qiang (小强), the name of the most famous cockroach in Chinese cinema, that's probably a wise decision.