Some tigers face extinction

Worldwide, it is feared that the population of the wild tiger may have dropped by 50% in the last 25 years. According to the World Wildlife Fund, WWF, of the five remaining species, at least one is in serious danger of becoming extinct.

A lot of the blame can be laid at the feet of Chinese people and their demand for tiger parts that are used in traditional Chinese medical practices. In addition, the destruction of natural tiger habitat is placing the big cat in great peril.

Experts from Africa, Asia and Europe gathered at a conference in Sweden have stated that the South China tiger will soon become extinct, and that the Sumatran tiger population was faring little better.

The WWF said that they believe that with proper measures in place is possible that tigers who actually thrive. Moreover, significantly increase their numbers into thousands.
Director of WWF India’s species program Sujoy Banerjee said at the conference “In many ways the tiger stands at a crossroads between extinction and survival, and which path it takes is totally dependent on us,”

The Nepal-based WWF tiger coordinator Bivash Pandav stated that it was his belief that there were approximately 3500 wild tigers left on the planet. Twenty five years ago, the figure was more than double that.

He also said that in the Indonesian region of Sumatra. The number of tigers have fallen to a mere 400 as forested areas have been decimated leaving the tiger in a critical population situation.

By 2004 in Indonesian forested land covered less than 50% of the area that was forested in 1982. They also believe that by 2050, if current trends continue more than 90% of all Indonesian forests will have been cut down. Which would leave the Sumatran tigers without a viable amount of forest to live in.

He did say that “There is hope to save animals in this place” if conservationists were to buy a land from the Indonesian government.

In India, tiger populations have now been reduced to 60% less than just six years ago, down to approximately 1400. Just 100 years ago, tiger populations in the country were estimated at 40,000. On an average day, we loose one tiger in India.

One of the causes of this is small farmers who regard tiger’s threat to their livestock. There is new pressure from governments around the world to curb poaching of tigers. In China, habitat protection measures could make a massive difference to local tiger populations.

It is possible, if governments persist with new measures that tigers quickly regained their numbers up to as many as 10,000 in as little as 10 years.