Tigers confiscated from the residence of a businessman earlier this year sit inside a cage at the Animal Rescue Centre in West Java, Indonesia. Source: APSeptember 15, 2010
Ben Webster
Times Online
PROTECTING tigers in the wild should be abandoned in parts of Asia and conservation funding focused on a few key sites where there is hope of successful breeding, a study has recommended.
It stated that tiger populations were now too low in several countries, including China, Vietnam, Cambodia and North Korea, for there to be any realistic chance of numbers recovering to a sustainable level.
The study by the University of Cambridge concluded that all public and private funding for tiger conservation should be devoted to 42 core sites in six countries where numbers could recover to include at least 25 breeding females.
The core sites cover 6 per cent of the land deemed to be tiger habitat.The recommendations are likely to provoke uproar at the "tiger summit" in St Petersburg in November, where leaders of the 13 "tiger range states" will discuss how to allocate resources.
The study found that misguided efforts by conservationists were partly responsible for the continuing decline in the number of tigers in the wild. Encouraged by the apparent success of reserves in the 1970s, conservation campaigns had broadened their ambitions and tried to protect much larger areas.
Resources had been spread too thinly as a result and rangers had become overstretched and unable to cope with the growth in poaching linked to the illegal trade in powdered tiger bone as a traditional Chinese medicine.
The study, published in the journal PLoS Biology, concluded: "Current approaches to tiger conservation are not slowing the decline in tiger numbers, which has continued unabated over the last two decades.
"The authors said that the species was facing its "last stand", with fewer than 3,500 tigers in the wild, of which 1,000 were breeding females. There were 7,000 tigers a decade ago and more than 40,000 in the 1950s. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, a US campaign group, there are now more tigers in captivity in Texas than in the wild across Asia.
The largest number of core tiger sites are in India, which has 18 of the 42 identified by the study. Sumatra has eight and the Russian Far East, in the region north of Vladivostock, has six. A small number of sites were considered worth protecting in Malaysia and Thailand, and one in Laos.
Dr John Robinson, one of the authors of the report, said that northeast China now had only about ten tigers and the only evidence of any breeding was a dead cub found last year. An 18-month search in eastern Cambodia, which had a significant population of tigers a decade ago, had yielded no evidence that any survived.
Speaking to The Times, Dr Robinson said that the number of tigers could fall below 1,000 by 2025 unless conservation efforts were concentrated on the 42 sites. "We should be putting our resources into core sites," he said.
However, he admitted that it would be difficult to get countries to agree to give up their conservation money for the sake of healthier tiger populations elsewhere.
Funding for the core sites needed to be doubled to dollars 82 million a year for stronger enforcement of wildlife laws and better training of rangers, he said. The best-protected habitats had paid informers who tipped off rangers about poaching.
Professor Nigel Leader-Williams, who also contributed to the study, said that an Asia-wide network of large landscapes for tigers might still be feasible in the long term.
"But the immediate priority must be to ensure that the few breeding populations still in existence can be protected and monitored," he said. "Without this, all other efforts are bound to fail."
It stated that tiger populations were now too low in several countries, including China, Vietnam, Cambodia and North Korea, for there to be any realistic chance of numbers recovering to a sustainable level.
The study by the University of Cambridge concluded that all public and private funding for tiger conservation should be devoted to 42 core sites in six countries where numbers could recover to include at least 25 breeding females.
The core sites cover 6 per cent of the land deemed to be tiger habitat.The recommendations are likely to provoke uproar at the "tiger summit" in St Petersburg in November, where leaders of the 13 "tiger range states" will discuss how to allocate resources.
The study found that misguided efforts by conservationists were partly responsible for the continuing decline in the number of tigers in the wild. Encouraged by the apparent success of reserves in the 1970s, conservation campaigns had broadened their ambitions and tried to protect much larger areas.
Resources had been spread too thinly as a result and rangers had become overstretched and unable to cope with the growth in poaching linked to the illegal trade in powdered tiger bone as a traditional Chinese medicine.
The study, published in the journal PLoS Biology, concluded: "Current approaches to tiger conservation are not slowing the decline in tiger numbers, which has continued unabated over the last two decades.
"The authors said that the species was facing its "last stand", with fewer than 3,500 tigers in the wild, of which 1,000 were breeding females. There were 7,000 tigers a decade ago and more than 40,000 in the 1950s. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, a US campaign group, there are now more tigers in captivity in Texas than in the wild across Asia.
The largest number of core tiger sites are in India, which has 18 of the 42 identified by the study. Sumatra has eight and the Russian Far East, in the region north of Vladivostock, has six. A small number of sites were considered worth protecting in Malaysia and Thailand, and one in Laos.
Dr John Robinson, one of the authors of the report, said that northeast China now had only about ten tigers and the only evidence of any breeding was a dead cub found last year. An 18-month search in eastern Cambodia, which had a significant population of tigers a decade ago, had yielded no evidence that any survived.
Speaking to The Times, Dr Robinson said that the number of tigers could fall below 1,000 by 2025 unless conservation efforts were concentrated on the 42 sites. "We should be putting our resources into core sites," he said.
However, he admitted that it would be difficult to get countries to agree to give up their conservation money for the sake of healthier tiger populations elsewhere.
Funding for the core sites needed to be doubled to dollars 82 million a year for stronger enforcement of wildlife laws and better training of rangers, he said. The best-protected habitats had paid informers who tipped off rangers about poaching.
Professor Nigel Leader-Williams, who also contributed to the study, said that an Asia-wide network of large landscapes for tigers might still be feasible in the long term.
"But the immediate priority must be to ensure that the few breeding populations still in existence can be protected and monitored," he said. "Without this, all other efforts are bound to fail."
2 comments:
in cambodia, tigers should belong in the cage; they eat human, you know! don't let them roam around cambodia for free without a cage, ok! same with croc! must control these savage animals, ok!
Ok! Let put the one eye tiger in cage and sale his vald for chinese medicine!
Sorry Borany! we need some money to feed the rabis tiger!
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