Abandon 'hopeless' tiger populations and save the few we can, say experts

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: AP

September 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."

[Cambodian] Woman tried to smuggle tiger penis into NZ

May 13, 2010
NZPA

AUCKLAND - A Cambodian woman who tried to smuggle a tiger penis and gallbladder into New Zealand could face a fine of up to $79,840.

The woman was searched after MAF Biosecurity (MAF) detector dog Kelso indicated she was carrying something when she arrived at Auckland airport from Singapore on Saturday.

The dog's handler, Courtney Moore, did a search and found a stocking tied around her waist and a plastic bag around her leg, MAF said in a statement.

The find sent a strong signal to people thinking about smuggling illegal goods into New Zealand, MAF detector dog program manager Craig Hughes said.

The tiger is an endangered species and protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

MAF said that while some cultures valued tiger parts for supposed medicinal benefit, the risk to the species was extreme and globally all tiger species were endangered.

Genuine tiger penises were rare and could be sold at inflated prices for use in adornment, rituals and medicines.

The woman was travelling with her daughter and husband.

If she was charged could be fined or jailed for up to five years or both under the Biosecurity Act.

MAF said it had yet to decide if the woman would be charged.

Special Dogs Assist in Wild Tiger Conservation Efforts in Cambodia

A female tiger, Neang Sros, gapes while her taking a rest at the Tuek Chhou Zoo in Kampot province, some 150 kilometers south of the Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Photo: AP)

In the Asian zodiac, this is the year of the tiger but conservationists say wild tiger populations are quickly disappearing. In Cambodia, there is hope that a pair of special dogs from the United States can help save the tiger.

22 February 2010
Daniel Schearf, VOA
Mondulkiri, Cambodia

In Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia conservationists estimate hunting and poaching have reduced tiger numbers to fewer than 30 in each country.

In eastern Cambodia's Mondulkiri Protected Forest, conservationists have brought in unique specialists to track down the few remaining tigers.

Sadie May and Scooby Doo are black Labrador retrievers. They are part of Conservation Canines, a project at the University of Washington in the U.S. that trains dogs to sniff for wild animal feces - also called scat.

Scooby's handler, Jennifer Hartman, says the dogs are much faster than human researchers at finding tiger scat.

"And we train them to sit at them, which shows us that they have something," she said. "And, we come and check it out. And, all of our dogs are extremely ball driven - they love to play. So, their reward for finding a scat is they get to play ball for two to three minutes and that keeps them good all day long."

The handlers note where the scat is found and take a sample for analysis to determine if it is from a tiger and to check the animal's health.

Sadie's handler, Elizabeth Seely, says they can learn a lot from animal droppings.

"We can get hormone levels, physiological data, disease status," she said. "And, all of it combined will give us an overall population health."

Cambodia's Mondulkiri Forest was once rich in wildlife, including tigers, but hunting and poaching largely emptied the region and killed off almost all the tigers.

Lean Kha was a soldier with the communist Khmer Rouge in the early 1980s and admits he killed wildlife for food and trade, including 14 tigers.

He says he became a forest ranger to make up for what he calls his past sins.

"There were a lot of animals when I was with the Khmer Rouge and less afterwards," he said. "But, since I became an animal protector it seems like wildlife numbers are increasing."

Conservation Canines has teamed up with Cambodian rangers and the conservation group WWF to protect wild tigers. The big cats once roamed throughout Asia, into Siberia, but conservationists say only a few thousand tigers remain in the wild; far more live in captivity. Without immediate action, the WWF says, by 2022, there may no longer be any wild tigers.

Nick Cox, the WWF's Dry Forest and Tiger Program coordinator for the countries along Southeast Asia's Mekong River, says the forests of Cambodia's eastern plains offer an intact habitat for reviving wild tigers.

"These are some of the largest protected areas in this part of Asia and particularly important for conservation because they hold huge potential for recovering wildlife populations including tiger," he said.

The WWF has set up cameras in parts of the forest to capture images of elusive wildlife.

But the last photo they got of a tiger was in 2007.

Conservationists hope that Sadie May and Scooby Doo will find some fresher evidence of wild tigers - and help efforts to save them.

Fewer tigers to welcome their year

February 09, 2010
Source: Global Times

China has been observing a sharp dwindling in its wild tiger population, with fewer than 50 now believed to remain in the country, conservationists said Monday, days before the Chinese lunar new year of the Tiger, which starts Sunday.

About 15 Bengal tigers live in Tibet, 10 Indochinese tigers are in southwestern Yunnan Province, and around 20 Siberian tigers are in the northeast, Xie Yan, director of the China program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said Monday.

The figures, however, are based on data from 2000.

Accurate figures are not available for the global tiger population, but the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that 3,200 tigers, compared with about 20,000 in the 1980s and 100,000 a century ago, are still living across 12 Asian countries and in Russia.

Reasons for the speedy disappearance of the wild tiger in the country vary. But the deteriorating environment in the animal's habitats due to deforestation caused by the timber industry, residential use and infrastructure construction, are the most-blamed causes.

In the meantime, the decline in the public's favor for wild tiger protection became notable due to a lack of guaranteed compensation for villagers whose livestock were attacked by tigers.

The South China Tiger might already be extinct, Xie said, adding, "The number of wild tigers left in China is very depressing. … The populations in Tibet and in the south are still dropping."

He Yong, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), admitted that the chances of the revival or expansion of the population of Bengal tigers in Tibet were slim, as they live in a rather enclosed environment.

"It is more hopeful to revive the tiger population in the northeast and southwest," He said.

Xie said she'd pin her hopes on the country's northeast, which borders Russia, where hundreds of Siberian tigers live in the wild.

"The northeast tiger is now stable, and may be increasing a little, but the number is still very small," she added.

"But last year was the first year I've felt a lot of confidence in the support of the central government, the State Forestry Administration and local governments," Xie added.

"We see improvements in the management of nature reserves, we see the understanding of local communities, so I hope the tiger year will be the turning point for tiger conservation in China," she said.

The Hunchun Nature Reserve opened in 2001 in Jilin, becoming the country's first such habitat for Siberian tigers. In 2006, Jilin introduced regional regulations stipulating compensation for people whose livestock were attacked by wild tigers, an official effort to ease tensions between humans and tigers amid increasing competition over living space and resources.

Poaching in order to procure the highly demanded skins and bones of tigers was also a major factor for the shrinkage in the number of wild tigers. China has banned the use of tiger parts in medicine, but everything from the fur and whiskers to eyeballs and bones are feared still sought.

The black-market price for a tiger is as high as $80,000, according to He of the IFAW.

"Once the trend of mass consumption is stimulated, it will be very dangerous for the wild tigers, as the cost of killing tigers is much lower than raising them," He said.

The State Forestry Bureau vowed last month to strengthen the protection of wild tigers and severely crack down on the illicit smuggling of and trade in tiger parts.

The Indochinese tiger is also on the brink of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 left in the forests of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, reports say.

Siberian tigers are far more numerous just across the border in Russia, where around 500 still live in an area with a lighter human presence.

China last month pledged to double the number of wild tigers by the year 2022 and called for the protection of habitats to save the animals from extinction.

More tigers are now living in zoos or breeding centers. The Siberian Tiger Park in Heilongjiang Province, for example, has raised more than 900 of the felines.

The WWF says the tiger faces extinction by 2022.

Tiger poop sniffing-dog

Dog sniffs for tiger droppings in Cambodia

Friday, March 13, 2009

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A dog trained in Russia to sniff for tiger droppings has begun searching for the big cats in a protected area in Cambodia, conservationists said Friday.

The German wire-haired pointer named Maggie last week began to search for signs of tigers in Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area.

"Normally, a dog can smell very far. So we are using the dog to find the presence of the tigers in the area," said Men Soriyun, a project manager for the north-eastern protected area.

Conservationists are uncertain how many of the big cats remain in Cambodia's jungles.

A second dog will be brought from Russia to the protected area later this year, according to conservationists at the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

Tigers originally ranged over much of Asia, but are now scattered across parts of south and southeast Asia, with a few populations in the Russian far east and China, according to the group.

It said up to 500,000 tigers likely roamed the Asian continent 200 years ago, but poaching and habitat loss has reduced the population to about 5,000.

In 2006 the group and conservation outfit Panthera, also based in New York, launched a 10-million-dollar initiative called "Tigers Forever."

The use of sniffer dogs is part of the programme, which aims to increase tiger populations by 50 percent in key sites across Asia over ten years.