Endangered wild tiger population on the rise
The world’s endangered tiger population, threatened by poachers and habitat destruction, is recovering after a century-long decline, conservationists said Monday.
The World Wildlife Fund said surveys indicate that 3,890 tigers now live in 13 countries across Asia, up from an estimated 3,200 in 2010, when the last wide-scale counts were carried out. Increases were particularly notable in Russia, Nepal, Bhutan and India, which is home to the world’s largest wild tiger population.
WWF attributed the rise to better surveys, which are carried out by tigerrange countries and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as well as enhanced protection efforts in the six years since those nations pledged to double the population by 2022.
“We’ve watched tigers decline for decades and have dreamed of bending that curve in the other direction,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “This is a big deal.”
There are some caveats, of course. The current tiger population is bigger than it was six years ago, but it’s miniscule compared to the 100,000 believed to have lived in Asia in 1900, and it’s still smaller than the estimated 5,000 to 10,000 captive tigers in the U.S.
But at the rate of growth over the past six years, the goal of doubling the population in the wild appears within reach.
“I think it’s doable,” said Ginette Hemley, wildlife conservation chief at WWF. “But it’s not going to happen without big mobilizations of additional resources and commitments.”
Poaching is the most immediate threat to wild tigers. In relentless demand, their parts are used for traditional medicine and folk remedies in Asia.
In Indochina and China, poaching is so pervasive that thousands of forest acres stand empty of tigers.
And in Cambodia last week, officials said the fight to save the tiger was over: they are now extinct in that nation.