News

Bad news for tigers

7 June 2007 / Operation Charm

India has fewer wild tigers than had previously been thought. In May the Wildlife Institute of India published the first results of a tiger census, which was carried out in 2006. This shows that, since the last census in 2002, tiger numbers in some parts of India have fallen by as much as 60%.

The 2002 census estimated that India had 3,500 wild tigers but conservationists have always thought that this was an over-estimate. Further results of the latest census will be released later this year but, if the figures released so far were extrapolated across the whole of India they would show that the country with the largest wild tiger population may have as few as 1400 of the animals left.

Poaching and loss of habitat are blamed for the decline. Tiger skins and bones are highly prized as decorative items and ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine so poaching can be very profitable. In 2005 Sariska Tiger Reserve was found to have lost all of its tigers to poaching, and poachers were also found to be active in a number of other reserves across India.

Belinda Wright, Executive Director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India said "The results are very depressing but it's a major step forward that a government study has finally come to terms with this disastrous decrease in tiger numbers."

Conservationists are now calling on the Indian government to crack down on poaching and the illegal trade in tigers.