Nations Band Together to Double Worldwide Population of Wild Tigers

Nations Band Together to Double Worldwide Population of Wild Tigers

The four-day International Forum on Tiger Conservation came to an end yesterday in St. Petersburg after successfully attracting officials from 13 nations to discuss ways to save the wild tiger population.

This is the year of the tiger in China, but the animal has been reduced to a worldwide wild population of just 3,200 down from over 100,000 about a century ago. The fact that those numbers are also unevenly spread out and include all subspecies is a serious matter of concern for the long term health of the gene pool and the sustainability of the tiger in its natural habitat.

Officials from all nations where tigers are found, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam were present for the important summit, as well as representatives from leading wildlife organizations.

The forum passed measures which, if successful, aim to see the population of wild tigers double by the next Chinese year of the tiger, which occurs in 2022. Leaders such as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended the forum, demonstrating the seriousness of the issue. The restoration of the animal's habitat coupled with an intensive breeding program needs to be worked on simultaneously and coordinated among all countries to achieve this goal, Wen said.

Additionally, man-made structures such as the border crossing between China and Russia are cutting off tigers from other breeding stocks, further depleting the gene pool and having the effect of creating small pools of tigers in areas too small to properly accommodate them. A single Siberian tiger for example needs a space of about 325 square kilometers to roam. The cutting-off of passageways is also making it easier for poachers to find them. Tigers, however, are relatively easy to breed in captivity (there are an estimated 5,000 tigers in North America kept in zoos, private zoos, or as exotic pets), but the goal is to ensure that breeding is carried out in a planned manner, recorded, and the animals then released back into a sustainable environment.

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