It’s estimated that around half the world’s wild tigers are in India, so the news that tiger numbers there have increased gives us hope for their future.
The Indian government’s latest figures reveal that wild tiger numbers across the country are now calculated to be 1,706 - that’s up from 1,411 in the last tiger census in 2007.
We have to bear in mind that the updated figures incorporate a number of areas not previously surveyed. For example, the Sundarbans region (home to 70 tigers) was included in the count this time. And some areas outside of national parks have been surveyed more intensively than before, such as the Moyar Valley and Sigur Plateau in Southwest India’s Western Ghats Complex - a focus of recent WWF conservation efforts - which were found to contain more than 50 tigers, and the Ramnagar Forest Reserve outside Corbett National Park.
It’s not all good news. While some populations have increased, others have fallen. As the head of WWF’s Tigers Alive Initiative, Mike Baltzer, points out, “If we’re to ensure we not only halt tiger decline but help them make a lasting comeback, we need two vital conservation ingredients: strong protection of core tiger areas and areas that link them, and also effective management in the surrounding regions.”
WWF’s CEO in India, Ravi Singh, says the detailed nature of the report shows the importance India attaches to tiger conservation – and indicates: “the need to intensify field-based management and intervention… bringing more people and partners into the process.”
The results of the latest count, conducted by India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority with the help of key partners including WWF, were released to mark the opening of the International Tiger Conservation Conference. This three-day meeting follows on the heels of the groundbreaking Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP) - the first formal worldwide plan to protect the species and double their number in the wild, as agreed at last November’s Tiger Forum in St. Petersburg.
Wild tigers can be found today in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Source - http://www.wwf.org.uk
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