Visitors to see tigers forever : 08-11-2007
An initiative supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) could ensure that visitors to South Asia can continue to enjoy being able to spot tigers, despite the fact that numbers have been dwindling.
After visiting 157 reserves in India, Bangladesh and Bhutan, the WCS concluded that with small changes in the management of tiger conservation, the number of the animals could be doubled.
Some 21 of the reserves were deemed suitable for large healthy tiger populations and these protected areas were judged to be able to sustain 58 to 95 per cent of the Indian subcontinent's potential tiger capacity.
While currently conservationists estimate that there are between 1,500 and 4,000 tigers surviving on the subcontinent, but there is potential for between 3,500 and 6,500 creatures.
The WCS calculates that improvements such as better funding, more support for reserve workers, restoring natural tiger habitats and cracking down on poaching, could see 50 per cent more tigers in existence over the next decade. The WCS is working with the Panthera Foundation on an initiative, called Tigers Forever, which aims for this goal.
"We were happy to find that the most important reserves identified in the study already have made tiger conservation a priority," said the lead author Dr Jai Ranganathan of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.
While the rest of the 129 reserves did not have the right landscape to support high numbers of tigers, the WCS is confident that the environment around the conservation areas could also be better managed to halt further reductions in tiger numbers.