Bouncing back
A decade ago, 13 countries pledged to double their tiger population. We investigate who’s hit the target
“Some find them beautiful, others find them dangerous, but everyone agrees this is tiger territory too.”
The sun was getting low over Bardia National Park, Nepal. As wildlife photographer Emmanuel Rondeau and his guide made their way back to camp, they spotted a group of chital deer not far from the park’s border. Huddling tightly and casting furtive glances towards the undergrowth, the deer’s behaviour suggested they were not alone. But it was impossible to identify any potential threat in the metre-high grass.
The guide pulled up next to a tree and began to climb. Emmanuel followed. Suddenly, the guide stopped in his tracks, and uttered the one word Emmanuel had hoped to hear since he’d started his quest five years previously: “Tiger!”
It took a moment for Emmanuel to spot his quarry, perfectly camouflaged among grasses burnt yellow by the sun. It was his first wild encounter with a tiger after documenting the big cat, first in Russia, then Bhutan and now Nepal. As if that wasn’t enough, the guide then spotted a second tiger, lying quietly in a closer patch of vegetation. Emmanuel was incredibly lucky. After decades of uncontrolled persecution and relentless habitat destruction, wild tiger populations have declined by more than 95 per cent – from an estimated 100,000 to as few as 3,200 12 years ago.
With the species this far gone, it has become clear that saving tigers from extinction will only be achieved through global co-operation. And so, in 2010, leaders from 13 tiger range countries came together in St Petersburg for the first International Tiger Conservation Forum. There, they endorsed a Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP) and made an unprecedented pledge: to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022, the next Chinese Year of the Tiger.
This ambition became known as TX2, and with the help of a coalition of partners, the goal was set. TX2 was deemed the most ambitious global recovery effort ever undertaken for a single species, with its ultimate success measured by the total number of wild tigers. So, with just months to go, who’s on track?
“Some countries have done some phenomenal conservation work, either demonstrating recovery or increases of numbers, and in some cases range expansion. Those countries include Bhutan, Nepal, India, Russia and China,” says Stuart Chapman, WWF lead on the Tigers Alive initiative. Conversely, other
Top left: spotted deer are among tiger prey species in Bardia National Park. Top right: travelling by elephant is all in a day’s work for antipoaching patrol teams in Nepal. Right: stripes help to break up the outline of these big cats, letting them merge into the grass.
countries have lost ground. “Tigers are in decline in Malaysia, probably stable in Thailand, but have disappeared altogether from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.” In terms of monitoring the progress towards TX2, Stuart anticipates an increase in the number of tigers against the baseline, but predicts a patchwork of success and failure across individual country counts.
On the up
Nepal was the first country that looked set to achieve its pledge, when its 2018 nationwide survey reported 235 tigers – up from 121 documented in 2008. For a landlocked country, sandwiched between the high ranges of the Himalayas and the lowlands of the Terai, it continues to have great success. Support for the movement was established at the very top, with Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli chairing the National Tiger Conservation Committee himself. “The tiger is a priceless gift of nature,” he said in a speech. “Its conservation would reflect the pride of Nepalis.”
Nepal established a dedicated task force within the government, which spearheaded a range of measures focusing on conserving tigers and their habitat. The country increased the number of national parks, extended the ranges of existing national parks and restored corridors to connect them all, involving local communities at every step of the way. The results have been impressive. Bardia, for instance, has since seen a four-fold increase in tiger numbers against the baseline.
“Tigers have never disappeared from this landscape, so people feel that the big cats are part of their lives,” says Emmanuel. “Some find them beautiful and exciting; others, such as farmers, find them dangerous, but everybody agrees that this is tiger territory too.”
Emmanuel witnessed first-hand the measures on the ground in Bardia that ensure as peaceful a coexistence as possible between people and predator. “No livestock is left unguarded; paddocks are protected with electric fencing and watchtowers,” he recalls. “A rapid response team deals with immediate conflict, and I witnessed regular anti-poaching patrols on foot, on bicycle – even on elephant.”
Connectivity is vital to ensuring the continued growth of healthy tiger populations.
As well as an increasing population, Nepal has also recorded two separate incidents of wild tigers at altitudes previously undocumented. In April 2020, cameratrap images showed an individual at about 2,500m on the forested slopes of Dadeldhura, in the west of the country, a new record that was broken again just eight months later, when another tiger was photographed at 3,165m in the eastern Ilam district. “It’s likely that tigers once inhabited these higher landscapes, but they certainly haven’t been seen there for a generation,” says Stuart. “The reason they can move from the Terai into the midhills is that there is still forest connectivity between the lowlands and the uplands – proof of the success of connectivity conservation.”
At such elevations, the tiger’s standard prey of sambar and chital deer does not exist. Instead, the cat has to rely on smaller upland species, such as musk deer, muntjac and wild pig. The only other prey option is domestic cattle. Thus, the tiger’s return comes with a series of conservation challenges. “It’s important to map where these places are and to ensure that there are conservation interventions ready to be implemented, so that the presence of tigers doesn’t create conflict,” explains Stuart.
Save havens
Connectivity is vital to ensuring the continued growth of healthy tiger populations. And in some areas, connectivity does remain intact. More than 70 per cent of Bhutan, for example, is comprised of forest cover – the highest proportion in Asia. Bhutan’s ability to protect large swathes of virgin wilderness can probably be credited to two factors. First, the country has long prioritised conservation of the environment. In the 1970s, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck developed a new approach to development known as Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNH stated that sustainable
development should give equal importance to the non-economic aspects of wellbeing, with one of its four pillars being conservation of the natural environment. Second, Bhutan is a Buddhist country, where tigers are revered not only for their ecological role in keeping forests healthy, but also for their place in spiritual beliefs. The tiger is the only real-life species included among the four protective animals of Buddhism – Sing (snow lion), Chung (garuda, a bird-like creature), Druk (dragon) and Tag (tiger).
It’s fitting, then, that tigers are thriving in Bhutan. The population has now crept over the 100 mark and the country likely offers the species the highest probability of long-term persistence in the world. As with Nepal, tigers are being documented at high altitudes, with camera-traps in Wangchuck Centennial National Park capturing images of a cat at 4,400m, and pugmarks at 4,600m – the highest altitude record to
“For a small country, Nepal has achieved extraordinary success – and not just for tigers.”
date. Indeed, due to their remoteness and inaccessibility, the slopes of the Himalayas could provide an important refuge for tigers in the future.
Yet nothing is guaranteed. Bhutan is developing fast, with new roads and infrastructure springing up in every corner. Part of Emmanuel’s project during his time in the country was to capture imagery to support a campaign to protect wildlife corridors from the threat of development.
“Bhutan contrasts starkly with Nepal, where tigers live side by side with people,” says Emmanuel. This is evident in his camera-trap footage from Nepal, which shows tigers and locals regularly using the same forest routes, sometimes within minutes of each other. The sheer difference in tiger landscapes is one of the reasons the GTRP is so complex. However, the campaign is a landscape-based approach that aims to encompass these intrinsic differences. “We engage in conservation actions well beyond protected areas – and even beyond country boundaries in this case – with communities at the centre of these efforts,” explains Nilanga Jayasinghe, WWF’s senior programme officer for Asian species. “Communities having a sense of ownership and stewardship benefits both wildlife and people.”
And where one goes, others should follow. “If Nepal can do it – if Nepal can commit the resources and the political will to make saving tigers a source of national pride, it sets a tremendous example for other