Science News

Tiger population drops 70 per cent in Greater Mekong countries

Jan 26, 2010, 7:33 GMT

A photo dated on 24 April 2009 shows the face of a tiger at Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand. EPA/RUNGROJ YONGRIT

   Bangkok - The tiger population in the five South-East Asian countries connected by the Mekong River has dropped 70 per cent over the past 12 years to only 350, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature said Tuesday.    

   According to a new WWF report, Tigers on the Brink: Facing up to the Challenge in the Greater Mekong, the tiger population in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam has plummeted from an estimated 1,200 in 1998 to about 350 in 2010.

   The year 2010, like 1998 is the Year of the Tiger according to the 12-year-cycle Chinese zodiac.

   'Decisive action must be taken to ensure this iconic sub-species does not reach the point of no return,' said Nick Cox, coordinator of the WWF Greater Mekong Tiger Programme.

   'There is a potential for tiger populations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to become locally extinct by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022, if we don't step up actions to protect them,' Cox said

   Indochinese tigers historically were found in abundance across the Greater Mekong region but now there are no more than 30 individual tigers per country in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

   The remaining populations are predominantly found in the Kayah Karen Tenasserim mountain border between Thailand and Myanmar, the WWF report said.

   The report states that increasing demand for tiger body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine and habitat fragmentation from unsustainable regional infrastructure development have driven the decline of the region's Indochinese tiger population.

   Tigers on the Brink was released on the eve of the first ministerial meeting of the 'tiger range countries' to be held in Hua Hin, Thailand, from Wednesday to Friday.

  Representatives from the environmental ministries of 13 tiger-range countries are to to map out their joint commitments to saving the endangered species. In their diminishing jungles, urbanization, deforestation and poaching has reduced the world's tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to an estimated 3,200 today.

   The meeting in Hua Hin is to be followed up by the world's first Tiger Summit in Russia's Vladivostok in September, hosted by Prime Minster Vladimir Putin and co-chaired by World Bank President Robert Zoellick.

   The summit is the culmination of the Global Tiger Initiative, launched by the World Bank, WWF and a coalition of non-governmental organizations to secure governmental commitments to save the tiger from extinction.

   The process started in Kathmandu in October when experts gathered to compile recommendations on the measures required of governments to preserve their wild tiger populations.

   The 13 tiger-range countries are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.