Conferees from 20 countries gather to discuss strategies-
Talks over tiger extinction fears. The Press Association
World's tiger population is disappearing fast
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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Just a few clips in the frame of this Workshop:
– World Bank President Robert Zoellick said that the illegal activities of traders and poachers is estimated to be worth over $10bn annually. That is second only to weapons and drug smuggling!
– The poaching problem has now become so great that supposedly “secure” reserves across Asia have been wiped out while other species – such as Asiatic lions, snow leopards and clouded leopards have also declined significantly.
– Sadly, the night before the tiger workshop, a two-year-old girl was reportedly killed and partially eaten by a tiger, bringing the total number of children killed this year in Nepal by tigers to six.
– WWF is hopeful that progress will be made with China. In the past, China had been refusing to acknowledge at all that there was a trade in banned animal organs. Now it is ready to talk about it. But can China be trusted when it comes to a trade based on cultural superstitions?
This is truly sad news. They have almost completely lost their habitat. They are being pushed closer and closer to humans, which would explain the higher incidence of predation.
http://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com
This is sad. It is a reminder of the cost of “progress” and population growth. I have a feeling that by the time I’m old and gray tigers will be gone from India due to habitat loss more than anything.
The problem with China is that they have not enforced the ban on trade in tiger parts, and they have allowed wealthy businessman to breed tigers in farms to supply local markets for tiger parts which is still used in chinese TCM. Until China enforces the ban tiger populations will continue to decline. This could be difficult for a culture that allows hundreds of thousands of sharks to be finned so that the chinese middle class can enjoy a bowl of freaking soup.
……and as 2010 – the Chinese “Year of the Tiger” – approaches, demand for tiger parts is expected to skyrocket even further out of control. Cheers with a sip of tiger bone wine!
Ruth Padel’s book: Tigers in Red Weather” (published 2006)is a dismal read about the “galloping” extinction rate of the tiger in the wild.
The root cause is either corrupt politics or excess human population. 3 ot the 7 original sub-species of tiger are now extinct in the “wild”. Even the magnificant Amur Tiger of Russia (the largest cat in the world) has been reduced to about 300 animals. If the tiger can’t make it is Russia, with a relatively low human population and large land mass, where will it survive?
Recently I saw a photo of Premier Putan, of Russia, smiling over a dead tiger he had shot. As he loves the outdoors maybe he will push to given better protection the the tigers in the 2 or 3 nationalparks in Russia.
Monty, how old was that picture of Putin with the tiger? That could set a dangerous precedent if he did it recently. The Amur leopard is also in severe danger and does not get the attention it deserves.
Putin – never slow to take up a macho pose – did not kill the tiger! The animal got loose during a photo shoot with the Russian Prime Minister who abandoned his pose and picked up a tranquiliser gun. According to press agency Interfax, after he fired the gun: Putin kissed the big cat and said “goodbye”.
Peter- I think the russians have been in the lead with tiger conservation. The siberian population is the only population of tiger that is increasing it’s numbers.
Wiliam;
yes, I agree, the russians do much betten than one would expect, despite a severe poaching problem. India and Nepal also doing a lot but suffer occasional setbacks.
It was disturbing to read how in Sumatra tigers continue to clash with loggers from an Indonesian Paper company (asia pulp and paper). In their quest for cheap raw materials they continue to encroach on the tigers habitat. We all know how these clashes turn out- the animal always loses.