Tigers could be extinct in 12 years if unprotected

[Sakobav]

Saw it on Yahoo - the clock starts tick tock tick tock ....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_saving_tigers
By IRINA TITOVA, Associated Press – Sun Nov 21, 10:53 am ET
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – Wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching, global wildlife experts told a "tiger summit" Sunday.
The World Wildlife Fund and other experts say only about 3,200 tigers remain in the wild, a dramatic plunge from an estimated 100,000 a century ago.
James Leape, director general of the World Wildlife Fund, told the meeting in St. Petersburg that if the proper protective measures aren't taken, tigers may disappear by 2022, the next Chinese calendar year of the tiger.
Their habitat is being destroyed by forest cutting and construction, and they are a valuable trophy for poachers who want their skins and body parts prized in Chinese traditional medicine.
The summit approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia.
The Global Tiger Recovery Program estimates the countries will need about $350 million in outside funding in the first five years of the 12-year plan. The summit will be seeking donor commitments to help governments finance conservation measures.
"For most people tigers are one of the wonders of the world," Leape told The Associated Press. "In the end, the tigers are the inspiration and the flagship for much broader efforts to conserve forests and grasslands."
The program aims to protect tiger habitats, eradicate poaching, smuggling, and illegal trade of tigers and their parts, and also create incentives for local communities to engage them in helping protect the big cats.
The summit, which runs through Wednesday, is hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has used encounters with tigers and other wild animals to bolster his image. It's driven by the Global Tiger Initiative which was launched two years ago by World Bank President Robert Zoellick.
Leape said that along with a stronger action against poaching, it's necessary to set up specialized reserves for tigers and restore and conserve forests outside them to let tigers expand.
"And you have to find a way to make it work for the local communities so that they would be partners in tigers conservation and benefit from them," Leape said.
"To save tigers you need to save the forests, grasslands and lots of other species," he added. "But at the same time you are also conserving the foundations of the societies who live there. Their economy depends very much on the food, water and materials they get from those forests."
About 30 percent of the program's cost would go toward suppressing the poaching of tigers and of the animals they prey on.
Russia's Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said that Russia and China will create a protected area for tigers alongside their border and pool resources to combat poaching.
Leape said that for some of the nations involved outside financing would be essential to fulfill the goals.
"We need to see signficant commitment by the multilateral and bilateral indsitutions like the Global Environment Facility and the World Bank plus individual governments like the U.S. and Germany," Leape told the AP.
For advocates, saving tigers has implications far beyond the emotional appeal of preserving a graceful and majestic animal.
"Wild tigers are not only a symbol of all that is splendid, mystical and powerful about nature," the Global Tiger Initiative said in a statement. "The loss of tigers and degradation of their ecosystems would inevitably result in a historic, cultural, spiritual, and environmental catastrophe for the tiger range countries."
Three of the nine tiger subspecies — the Bali, Javan, and Caspian — already have become extinct in the past 70 years.
Much has been done recently to try to save tigers, but conservation groups say their numbers and habitats have continued to fall, by 40 percent in the past decade alone.
In part, that decline is because conservation efforts have been increasingly diverse and often aimed at improving habitats outside protected areas where tigers can breed, according to a study published in September in the Popular Library of Science Biology journal.
Putin has done much to draw attention to tigers' plight. During a visit to a wildlife preserve in 2008, he shot a female tiger with a tranquilizer gun and helped place a transmitter around her neck as part of a program to track the rare cats.
Later in the year, Putin was given a 2-month-old female Siberian tiger for his birthday. State television showed him at his home gently petting the cub, which was curled up in a wicker basket with a tiger-print cushion. The tiger now lives in a zoo in southern Russia.

[nagarifle]

ah well lets enjoy them before they expire must get my kids to see some tigers in the wild.
unless local communities are involved they the tigers will come to a sudden dismiss.

[prashantsingh]

ah well lets enjoy them before they expire must get my kids to see some tigers in the wild.
unless local communities are involved they the tigers will come to a sudden dismiss.

4 tiger deaths in Kaziranga in the last one month.
1 tiger death in Sariska. (amongst those translocated from Ranthambore). A case of suspected poisoning by villagers whose cattle the animal had picked up.

I won't be surprised if we loose them even earlier.

[abhrankash]

ah well lets enjoy them before they expire must get my kids to see some tigers in the wild.
unless local communities are involved they the tigers will come to a sudden dismiss.

4 tiger deaths in Kaziranga in the last one month.
1 tiger death in Sariska. (amongst those translocated from Ranthambore). A case of suspected poisoning by villagers whose cattle the animal had picked up.

I won't be surprised if we loose them even earlier.

Dear Sir,

Until and unless we do have responsible leaders and responsible enforcement agencies we cannot have control over this illegal treads.
The incidents of Raja ji national park and Incidents that happened with Mr.Sanjeev Chadda as I have mentioned in earlier topics will happen from time and again.
And their is no doubt will loose this beautiful predator or you can say a great strategical and royal hunter.


THE SIGN OF ROYAL'S ("THE SHER")

[dr.jayakumar]

yes i agree, some countries like combodia,banglesh have lost lot of tigers in poaching.but here in india poaching is less and comparitively increasing but very slow.been trekking and in resent years,tiger sighting is more common in western ghats.i doubt that we will loose tigers.but as said above more is needed from govt to ensure safe environment for this majestic animal.

[Anand]

Unfortunately what is being said regarding the number of tigers in the wild in India and else where may not be even remotely accurate. The numbers may be far less than the 3200.
For a continued sustainability of a population of species a "minimum" number of animals is required to ensure that there is no dilution in the gene pool as in inbreeding. The current lot of Cheetahs anywhere in the world happen to be related too closely as only about 10,000 or so had been left by the last ice age. This was itself enough to really cause problems for the Cheetah and even now there reproductive rate is dismal. So while I want to be hopeful and wish the tiger the best of luck, I believe that its days are numbered and its only a matter of time before it is seen only in zoos and then finally our grand children will see only pictures and video recordings of it.

Anand

[nagarifle]

i just spoke with Nitro Express, he informed that one tiger was poisoned by poachers.

[abhrankash]

ah well lets enjoy them before they expire must get my kids to see some tigers in the wild.
unless local communities are involved they the tigers will come to a sudden dismiss.

4 tiger deaths in Kaziranga in the last one month.
1 tiger death in Sariska. (amongst those translocated from Ranthambore). A case of suspected poisoning by villagers whose cattle the animal had picked up.

I won't be surprised if we loose them even earlier.

Dear Sir,
On my way to hossiarpur(going for project work to ICML) at panipath I met a forest official of sariska who was sitting next to me he told me that, In sariska case it was the poachers not the villagers now a days in sariska the villagers are also getting conscious about this majestic animal and now a days they use to have modular fencing for their cattle safety at night.

and now a days they are not willing to kill the tiger also.

[Sakobav]

Anand

I agree the gene pool is another issue with shrinking numbers ...thats Darwin catching up

Best

[nagarifle]

one more RBT got shoot by the park guard in kazirunger park, due to the fact the RBT attacked a village women.

-- Thu Nov 25, 2010 7:45 --

one more died in Assam zoo

[OverUnderPump]

one more RBT got shoot by the park guard in kazirunger park, due to the fact the RBT attacked a village women.

The pressure of population on the 'buffer zones' of Kaziranga sanctuary is getting worse by the day, as is the case with other sanctuaries and parks. The video of a 'tiger attacking a forest guard on an elephant' that has become so popular is from Kaziranga, Assam. A buffer zone by definition is designed to keep the people and the animals away from each other. But 'political factors' are pushing people deeper into the buffer zones, thereby eroding the 'insulation' area and bringing them closer to the 'core area' of the park and in direct contact with the animals.

Kaziranga also faces another unique challenge during the monsoons when a major part of the core area gets flooded by the Brahmaputra and the animals seek higher ground most of which is to be found in the buffer zones, for example "Burapahar". And thats where human-animal conflicts flare up.

regards

OUP

[veeveeaar]

Unless contiguous and connected forest (corridors ) are MADE, the tiger habitat will shrink . BAYS or PENINSULAS of human settlements and farms inside forests are a hiderance to movement of tigers and all wild animals. These farms and so called settlements are staging points for poachers . So unless the forests are made contiguous, predator and prey gene pool will not be healthy.
Some eco tourism joints are used for revelry and FUN with blaring music and trash thrown out mindlessly to be foraged by wild animals and the fear of man is diminished .
Another problem is INSIDER POACHING ie a hunting party is organised by the forest personal themselves for big wigs with CONNECTIONS AND WEIGHT using the civilian bore guns .315 and 12 bore , provided to them for protection and the spent ammo is re stocked by locally procured ammo.This is a well oiled routine which seldom comes to notice
.A all India forest department specific bore of rifles, and revolvers and no shotguns using the surplus stocks of .303 and.38 revolvers can be used to re arm the forest personnel and this will eliminate INSIDER poaching and help in forensic investigation without spending a penny for arms. I learnt the Tiger Conservation Authority is going to arm the Tiger Protection Force , with INSAS rifles at a huge expenditure of tax payer's money . Are these guys going to fight insurgency?
translocation of prey and predator species in their former or extinct habitats is another viable option to improve breeding and gene pool

[OverUnderPump]

no shotguns

Finally someones talking sense,I agree with what you have to say veeveeaar. But just putting weapons in the guards hands is not enough. They need wireless communication facilities at the very least and 'Intelligence channels' which need to be cultivated amongst the villages that surround the sanctuaries.

Aaranyak an NGO had done its bit (circa-2005) if I can recall correctly, in providing Wireless Communication equipment and training to the forest dept officials who formed the frontline against poachers in Kaziranga. It has also completed a census of tigers based on DNA fingerprinting of faecal matter collected from another major tiger reserve in the North Eastern Region. Further work is afoot to use motion sensing camera's placed at strategic points to gather photographic evidence of tigers and to identify probable choice of 'corridors' based on traffic.

I'm not sure if the officials at Sariska would've ascribed to such a census being performed by any NGO, as it would 'bring out the truth'.

regards

OUP

[abhrankash]

Dear all,
Yesterday,In the morning itself I saw in the one of the news channel that a leopard was caught in the near by city area of Masoorie and by the application of the sleeping dot and the medical checkup the forest staff let the tiger go to deep inside the jungle.

But in today morning news I saw some where(in one of the village) either in Gujurat or Maharastra people caught the leopard and caged it by the help of a huge cage and after that the killed the leopard by throwing stones and hitting him with sharpened bamboos.

Its really sad !!!!

[abhrankash]

Today Times of India page no 10 one leopard has been bitten to death after he mauled a man of age nearly 30 yrs.(this Incident took place in one of the village in faridabad just 30km away from national capital)
The tiger was bitten to death in presence of police and the forest officials,I could not make out the point that why the govt officials are talking of conservation of wild life and so much of amount is being spent on these projects.If they are not aware of what to protect and how to protect.
If a tiger attacked a human all of a sudden you cannot term this tiger to be a man eater with out the scientific evidence their may be some reason if the tiger mauled the gentleman it might be the reason out of fear of human being the tiger might have mauled the man.
Instead of doing other things the enforcement agencies like forest and police they were the mere spectators of the killing.

one hand we are saying we are having 1411 tigers left on the other hand we are killing them one by one.
ITS VERY SAD....ITS HEINOUS!!!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 271567.cms