Imagine a world without tigers. These majestic big cats may dominate our culture and imaginations (Tony the Tiger of Frosted Flakes' fame, Tigger from "Winnie the Pooh," Jasmine’s pet tiger in "Aladdin" and Mike Tyson’s tiger in "The Hangover," to name a few), but in real life, these animals are sliding towards extinction.
According to the World’s Wildlife Foundation (WWF), there are just 3,200 wild tigers left in the world. Inspired by 2010 being the Chinese Year of the Tiger, WWF is running a massive campaign to foster tiger population growth.
Over a century ago, around 100,000 of these big cats roamed across Asian forests, from eastern Russia to China to Indonesia. Since then, four species have gone extinct, and the remaining six are all on the IUCN’s critically endangered list.
The South China tiger is the closest to extinction: 47 live in zoos and a few linger in wilderness. Poachers, looking to sell tiger bones for medicinal purposes, have ravaged the population.
In 1993, China banned the international trade of tiger parts, but enforcement of the law has typically been weak.
The Amur tiger, or white Siberian tiger, flirted with extinction in 1930, when numbers fell to roughly 20 remaining animals. With strong conservation efforts, including protecting three forested regions in the Russian far east, the population has since rebounded to nearly 400.
As with the South China, Malayan, Indochinese and Sumatran tigers, the main threat to the Amur tiger is poaching.
WWF in Russia and the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management are working to increase wild prey communities. in the hopes that tigers will flourish (and not kill livestock) when they have a natural source of food.
In India, massive habitat loss continues to devastate Bengal tiger populations. In the past eight years, the tiger community dropped from 3,600 members to around 1,400.
The IUCN reported that
“on average 55% of Tiger Conservation Landscapes [in India] consist of non-tiger habitat.”
Ecotourism is partially to blame -- hotels and tour vehicles invade precious habitat. In response, India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority announced it’s intention to phase out tiger tourism.
General lack of government action to protect India’s largest big cat, including relaxed poaching punishments, also contributed to the Bengal's collapse.
No matter the region, it seems that the same issues conspire against tigers: poaching and loss of habitat, coupled with either an inability or unwillingness on the part of local officials to do anything about it.
WWF’s ambitious Tx2 program aims “to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger.” The plan is to raise a pile of cash to help support immediate response efforts to help stop poaching and to influence politicians to launch their own conservation programs.
The organization is turning to celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio to help get the word out. The need could not be more desperate, and the fight to save tigers from extinction will surely require the efforts of the entire global community if it is to be successful.
Images: Tambako the Jaguar, Flickr
Tags: Animals, Cats, Mammals, Wildlife Conservation
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