Wild Tigers
Siberian Tiger Photograph by Konrad Wothe/ Minden Pictures
NGS stock photo of wild tigers in a pen by Michael Nichols CITES is an international agreement between 175 governments that aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
The risks of legalized farming of tigers are too great a gamble for the world to take, the World Bank told the 58th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) The Bank’s position on tiger farmStanding Committee, meeting in ing repudiates a controversial sugGeneva, Switzerland this week. gestion that poaching of wild tigers for traditional medicine and “We cannot know for sure if tiger aphrodisiacs would diminish subfarming will work. And if it does stantially if tigers, which breed not work the downside risks are prolfically in captivity, could be just too high–irreversible harm,” farmed–much like other animals says a formal statement read to the are farmed for food. CITES meeting yesterday by Keshav Varma, director at the World “Tiger farming has proven to be Bank and leader of the World a divisive issue and one that has Bank’s Global Tiger Initiative. distracted many in the conservation community from the common 2
goal of saving wild tigers in their wild habitats, ” the Bank says in its statement. “Too much faith has been placed lately upon the guidance that economics and market mechanisms can bring to this very complex issue. NGS photo by Michael Nichols “Economics is an extremely useful guide to policy, but as the World Bank can authoritatively say from the position of its vast professional and practical experience, narrow economic approach has its limits and it cannot meaningfully apply to this subject. “There are clever theories that tell us that tiger farming is and could become the panacea for conservation. But there are an equal number
of experts and theories who inform “The truth is that we cannot prous otherwise. vide answers to these counterfactuals that can only be known after “This is not surprising. There are the fact,” the bank says in its statemyriad unknowns and even more ment. unknowables that no amount of research can cast light upon.” “And this is why we need to exercise caution. Extinction is irreversible, so prudence and precaution NGS photo of seized illegally trad- suggest that the risks of legalized ed tiger parts by Michael Nichols farming are too great a gamble for the world to take. World Bank identifies serious risks in tiger farming: NGS photo by Michael Nichols Will legalized farming facilitate laundering? Would it create new markets and an even higher demand for wild tiger products–for those who want a luxury good–the “real thing”? And why if farming is so effective are wild bears still poached when there is a surplus of farmed bear bile in the world?
gers. “We also call upon the international community at large to join efforts in providing the necessary technical and other support to the respective countries in phasing out tiger farming. This is the only safe way to ensure that wild tigers may have a future tomorrow.” The World Bank’s statement was endorsed by WWF International, a global environmental organization with headquarters in Switzerland.
“We cannot know for sure if tiger farming will work. And if it does “Stopping all trade in tiger parts, not work the downside risks are and phasing out these tiger farms, just too high–irreversible harm.” is of the utmost urgency if the tiger is to survive in the wild.” Having carefully weighed the economic arguments, the Bank says, it “Stopping all trade in tiger parts, urges the CITES community to up- and phasing out these tiger farms, hold the ban on wild tiger products is of the utmost urgency if the tiger and for all countries to continue to is to survive in the wild”, said Suban the domestic trade of wild ti- san Lieberman, director of the Sp3
Bengal Tiger Photograph by Steve Winter
5,000 to 7,000 is a guess, since census methods can be faulty, some governments inflate numbers, and cat experts may understate numbers for fear of losing protected status.
Tiger trade is prohibited internationally and banned domestically in all of its range countries, includ- “What is certain: If tigers are to ing China–historically the largest survive in the wild, they need masmarket for tiger products, WWF sive human intervention.” said. Save the Tiger Fund, a program “However, owners of privately of the National Fish and Wildlife run tiger farms and a contingent of Foundaton, estimates that there wealthy business men across China were less than 5,000 tigers left in have been pressuring the Chinese the wild by 2005–down from an government to allow legal trade in estimated 100,000 in 1980. Only tiger parts within China and lift its two countries had populations of domestic tiger trade ban, imple- more than 500 wild tigers. mented in 1993.” By contrast, according to Save the Tiger Fund, there were more than National Geographic Magazine 15,000 tigers in farms, safari parks, published a cover story about wild and menageries. tigers in December, 1997. “No one knows how many wild tigers exist Bengal Tiger today,” the article said. Photograph by Steve Winter
3,000 wild tigers are left in the entire world. Tiger territory once stretched from Turkey to the Russian Far East and just a century ago, before the terrible toll of hunting and habitat destruction, 100,000 tigers inhabited the wilds of Asia. Now their descendents hang on in a tiny fraction of their former range, prowling fragmented pockets of habitat where keeping enough tigers alive to breed is increasingly difficult. Three of the nine tiger subspecies (Bali, Javan, and Caspian tigers) became extinct during the 20th century, leaving only the half dozen living species featured in this gallery.
Recent studies show in just three tiger generations (21 to 27 years) the big cats’ population has shrunk by 50 percent and their range has also been halved. Shrinking space and rampant poaching for traditional Chinese medicine present a formidable challenge to the future “The commonly cited estimate of Scientists estimate only about of wild tigers. 4
About half of all living tigers are Bengal tigers (pictured here), sometimes called Indian tigers because most live in that nation. Others are in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Myanmar. Given space and prey Panthera tigris tigris can thrive in many types of forests or grasslands, and the Bengal is the only subspecies that also inhabits mangrove forests, in the Sundarbans island group in the Bay of Bengal. Tigers tend to be solitary animals but where food is plentiful they can be found in relatively great densities, which makes India perhaps the best place to spot them. Bengal tigers are the world’s most likely to enjoy an abundance of pigs, deer, and other hoofed prey. An average of 18 tigers can occupy 39 square miles in India’s Corbett Tiger Re-
serve, while only a single Sumatran tiger could survive in that same area, and a male Amur tiger would need 10 times that amount, or 386 square miles. er, with tiger range state governments, to stop all poaching of tigers for illegal trade, and WWF welcomes the engagement of the World Bank in these efforts”.
female tiger can have 15 cubs over a lifetime and there is still some room for healthy populations to roam—but only if humans can curb poaching and make a commitment to let them live. That may be easiest to achieve in the Amur tiger’s vast northern woodlands, which offer fewer human residents and more space to be wild. In fact the Russian Far East is home to the Siberian tigers, also known as Amur biggest unfragmented tiger habitigers, prowl not Siberian taiga but tat left in the world. The tigers in the chilly forests of eastern Rus- this vast realm grow large as well, sia. On the brink of extinction and feeding on deer and boar to stretch numbering just a few dozen during nearly 11 feet long and topping the the mid-20th century, some 400 to scales at 660 pounds. 500 of these cats live today in Russia, with a few more in China and Recent genetic studies suggest possibly North Korea. that the extinct Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata), last seen in the This subspecies’ historical come- 1970s, was in fact the same subback is a remarkable conservation species as the Siberian tiger (Pansuccess story that gives some hope thera tigris altaica). for the future of all wild tigers. A
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Malayan Tiger Photograph by Joel Sartore
Tigers are sparsely scattered on the Malay Peninsula, occurring where small pockets of forest or vegetation are isolated enough to hold them and can provide enough prey to nourish them. It’s estimated that only one or two Malayan tigers can live in a 39square-mile territory here, because deer, boar, and other tiger food is thin on the ground. But these cats do have some humans on their side. The Global Tiger Initiative has commended the Malaysian government for its plan to connect tiger populations with wildlife corridors, making breeding more viable, and to double the numbers of its national animal by 2022. Only in 2004 did genetic studies establish Panthera tigris jacksoni as a subspecies separate from their Indochinese tiger relatives on the Asian mainland. To the naked eye the coloration, patterns, skull shapes, and other physical characteristics between these two subspecies are nearly identical. More than a thousand tigers prowled the Indonesian island of Sumatra when the animals were surveyed in 1978. Today, fewer than half that number survive here and those cats are under siege by poachers and ceaseless deforestation of their home forests fueled by the pulp, paper, and palm oil industries. A 2004 report from TRAFFIC, the IUCN/WWF effort to track the illegal wildlife trade, suggested that poachers were killing at least 40 of the critically endangered animals every year.
“Perhaps 500 Malayan tigers live in the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula (Malaysia and Thailand), but their tropical rain forest habitat is dwindling. As trees fall for farms and other development these tigers increasingly come into conflicts with people—such as when they prey on livestock—and often pay with their lives.” Photograph by Joel Sartore 6
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Photograph by Steve Winter A tiger peers at a camera trap it triggered while hunting in the early morning in the forests of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Tigers can thrive in many habitats, from the frigid Himalaya to tropical mangrove swamps in India and Bangladesh.
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Photograph by Steve Winter
each died out during the 20th century. Conservationists are working A poacher’s snare cost this six- hard to help their Sumatran relamonth-old cub its right front leg— tives avoid the same fate. and its freedom. The limb was amputated after the tiger had been Some conservationists maintain enmeshed for three days in a snare that not enough protected, undisin Aceh Province, Indonesia. Un- turbed land remains in the region able to hunt, the tiger now lives in to house a viable breeding populaa zoo on Java. tion. Not everyone agrees. A group called Save China’s Tigers, workThe Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris ing with state forestry authorisumatrae) is the last of the “island ties, has launched a controversial tiger” subspecies. The neighbor- “rewilding” project in which cats ing Indonesian islands of Java and from the subspecies’ tiny captive Bali were once home to their own population are transported to a distinct tigers, but the Bali tiger South African reserve where they (Panthera tigris balica) and the Ja- can breed and learn to survive for van tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica) possible reintroduction in China. 10
Though many conservationists take a dim view of the prospect, as of 2012 a dozen cubs had been bred and the effort was still moving forward. South China tigers were victims of eradication campaigns during China’s Great Leap Forward era of the 1950s and 1960s. Protection came in 1979, when hunting was banned, and China instituted more active conservation measures in the 1990s, but by that time populations had fallen irrecoverably.