No wonder Liu, a chief surgeon in the No 221 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army in Harbin of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, ponders carefully before taking on the task. He is facing a very special patient - a Siberian tiger.

Born in 1961, the Year of the Tiger on the Chinese lunar calendar, Liu, a doctor of human medicine, never dreamed that one day he would operate on tigers. Nor did he foresee that in less than two years, he would go on to treat a dozen of the ferocious beasts.

He has met with danger many times in his encounters with what the Chinese call the “king of the animals.” He has had to flee his operating theatre on numerous occasions when the anaesthetized tiger suddenly awoke mid-operation.

Despite the risks, Liu came to love his part-time job, for which he asks no payment.

For Liu, the most memorable operation was his first. In March 1998, Liu Xinchen, director of the Northeast Tiger Garden, called Liu Wenliang for urgent help.

A tiger raised in the semi-wilderness of the garden had fallen ill. Something huge was growing in its belly making the once lively tiger recumbent all day long.

“I’m a doctor for humans, I knew nothing about tigers,” Liu said. “But the director told me if I didn’t help them, the tiger would have little hope of survival.”

The number of Siberian tigers in the world is about 600, one-fifth of the world’s last 3,000 tigers.

In China, a large-scale survey between October 1998 and November 1999 indicated there were nine to 13 such precious tigers roaming the border between China and Russia.

The scarcity of the wild Siberian tigers has greatly increased the value of the 130 Siberian tigers under human care in Heilongjiang Province.

In 1986, Liu Xinchen and his colleagues set up the Felidae Breeding Center in the Hailing County of Mudanjiang, under the guide of the State Council’s Endangered Species Protection Office.

During the past 14 years, the number of Siberian tigers increased to over 130 from the original eight.

In 1996, they set up the Northeast Tiger Garden in the northern suburbs of Harbin as the breeding center’s research and tourist branch. Due to lack of funds, only a few veterinarians operate at the center.

As soon as he had accepted the task of saving the big cat, Liu Wenliang began to gather material about the physiology of the Siberian tiger. But he found little if any documents in the area.

After discussing with the garden’s staff, Liu focused on five difficult problems during the operation.

First, it was hard for him to examine the tiger as carefully as he would with human patients. The tiger could not tell him anything, so Liu had to judge the illness through daily observations.

The first step of the operation was to shave the tiger’s fur around the stomach. But no one knew what kind of blade should be used to shave the tiger’s thick, tough fur. Liu prepared a dozen knives. Then came the most difficult and crucial question: Which kind and how much medicines would be suitable for a tiger? There were no records to refer to and testing on other tigers was not an option.

He referred to tests on other wild animals and pets. Then judging from the tiger’s age, weight and illness, Liu carefully drew up a plan to administer the medicines.

The fourth question was related with stitching the wound. No thread could be left outside, otherwise the tiger would pick the thread with its tongue and tear open the wound. Liu prepared all sorts of thread and decided to suture in complex layers.

The final question was less difficult but still took him several days to tackle. With the garden staff’s help, Liu thoroughly disinfected a small room adjacent to the tiger’s ward and turned it into an operating theatre.

At 3:00 pm on March 31, 1998, Liu was ready to operate. After a few anesthetic shots, the tiger was still. Six young men carried the 100-kg tiger into the operation room.

Liu soon found most of the knives he had prepared were useless. Finally, with a sharp razor, he cleared away the tough fur on the tiger’s stomach.

As his knife cut open the skin the tiger trembled a little. Cold sweat rushed down Liu’s forehead. Telling himself to keep calm, he continued. The operation lasted three hours. He took out a volleyball-sized four-kg cyst from the tiger’s urogenital system.

As he finished stitching the wound, everyone in the room gathered around him and hugged him in tears.

“Some of my operations lasted over 10 hours. But I was never so concentrated and so tired. I almost collapsed on the floor when I finished,” Liu recalled. A few days later, when the tiger was able to walk again, Liu forgot his fear of tigers and took a picture with his special patient.

Liu’s success soon spread throughout the country. But instead of enjoying his fame, Liu felt a heavier responsibility for the Siberian tigers.

“As a doctor, it is my duty to save lives. I’ve operated on 15 Siberian tigers, I think it is my contribution to mankind and to the world,” he said.

Of course not all of his operations with the tigers ended in success. Some memories bring tears to his eyes.

Last summer, Liu got a call that a one-year-old tiger was on the brink of death at the Felidae Breeding Center. It rained heavily and Liu hurried for some 200 km from Harbin to Mudanjiang. From time to time, Liu and the staff had to push the car out of muddy puddles.

When he checked the motionless young tiger, he was told that the previous day, the tiger had fought over a chicken with other tigers. It swallowed part of the chicken and the tough feathers had probably lodged in its throat. But Liu found nothing in the tiger’s throat. Before he had time to search its esophagus, the tiger’s heart stopped beating.

Quietly, Liu carried out an autopsy on the tiger. He found a feather which had pierced the tiger’s oesophagus. It was clear that this was the cause of death.

Also last year, two female tigers fought fiercely in the tiger garden. One of them lost a large piece of skin on her chest and died two hours into the operation.

The other tiger was lightly wounded and hid in the woods for a few days. When the staff finally located it, the tiger was so weak that it could barely walk out of the bushes.

Almost all of the tigers Liu has treated were wounded in fights. In total, the tiger garden and the breeding center cover just over one square km. For the 130 Siberian tigers, this is far too limited. There are already not enough large, primitive forests left with intact food chains to sustain tigers in China. Thus it is impossible for the tiger garden and the breeding center to release the tigers into the wild, said Liu Dan, director of the breeding department at the Northeast Tiger Garden.

“I dearly hope that one day all the tigers could return to the forest, their real home. Then perhaps I could have more leisure,” smiled Liu.

Another dream Liu cherishes seems easier to fulfill.

At his home, under his bed, in a huge glass bottle, he still keeps the cyst from the first ill tiger he treated.

Although he was forced to move the brownish meat ball again and again as his family and neighbors all detest the object, Liu hopes that one day, his treasure will occupy a unique place in a tiger museum.

“Who knows, this might be the world’s biggest cyst from a tiger,” he said.

(China Daily 11/1/2000)