Fewer tigers to welcome their year

• Source: Global Times
• [02:11 February 09 2010]
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Siberian tigers stroll in snow Monday at the Hengdaohezi animal breeding center in northeastern Heilongjiang Province. The number of tigers in the center exceeds 900 and is expected to reach 1,000 by the end of the year. Photo:CFP

China has been observing a sharp dwindling in its wild tiger population, with fewer than 50 now believed to remain in the country, conservationists said Monday, days before the Chinese lunar new year of the Tiger, which starts Sunday.

About 15 Bengal tigers live in Tibet, 10 Indochinese tigers are in southwestern Yunnan Province, and around 20 Siberian tigers are in the northeast, Xie Yan, director of the China program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said Monday.

The figures, however, are based on data from 2000.

Accurate figures are not available for the global tiger population, but the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that 3,200 tigers, compared with about 20,000 in the 1980s and 100,000 a century ago, are still living across 12 Asian countries and in Russia.

Reasons for the speedy disappearance of the wild tiger in the country vary. But the deteriorating environment in the animal's habitats due to deforestation caused by the timber industry, residential use and infrastructure construction, are the most-blamed causes.

In the meantime, the decline in the public's favor for wild tiger protection became notable due to a lack of guaranteed compensation for villagers whose livestock were attacked by tigers.

The South China Tiger might already be extinct, Xie said, adding, "The number of wild tigers left in China is very depressing. … The populations in Tibet and in the south are still dropping."

He Yong, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), admitted that the chances of the revival or expansion of the population of Bengal tigers in Tibet were slim, as they live in a rather enclosed environment.

"It is more hopeful to revive the tiger population in the northeast and southwest," He said.

Xie said she'd pin her hopes on the country's northeast, which borders Russia, where hundreds of Siberian tigers live in the wild.