Tigers Vanish in Nepal

LiveScience.com Yahoo News 2 Jul 08;

Officials are alarmed by a plunging tiger population in the Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal, a refuge that once boasted among the highest densities of this endangered species in the Eastern Himalayas.

There were at least 20 tigers in the reserve in 2005 and now there are somewhere between six and 14, according to a World Wildlife Fund statement released today.

Poachers are suspected.

"The loss of tigers in Suklaphanta is undoubtedly linked to the powerful global mafia that controls illegal wildlife trade," said Jon Miceler, managing director of WWF's Eastern Himalayas Program.

"The evidence suggests that Nepal's endangered tigers are increasingly vulnerable to this despicable trade that has already emptied several Indian tiger reserves - clearly, this is symptomatic of the larger tiger crisis in the region. We need a stronger, more sustained response to this issue in order to protect the future of tigers in the wild."

Suklaphanta shares a porous international border with India, officials note, allowing for easy and untraceable transportation of wildlife contraband. Unlike poaching of other species, such as rhinos where only the horns are removed, virtually no evidence remains at a tiger poaching site because all its parts are in high demand for illegal wildlife trade.

In May, however, two tiger skins and nearly 70 pounds of tiger bones were seized from the border town of Dhangadi, according to the WWF. And two separate raids last month recovered tiger bones being smuggled by local middlemen through the reserve.

Tiger populations are low elsewhere, too.

"With only 4,000 tigers remaining in the wild, every tiger lost to poaching pushes this magnificent animal closer to extinction," said Sybille Klenzendorf, director of WWF's Species Conservation Program. "Tigers cannot be saved in small forest fragments when faced with a threat like illegal wildlife trade - this is a global problem that needs the concerted effort of governments, grassroots organizations and all concerned individuals."

Most poached tigers end up in China and Southeast Asia where they are used in traditional Chinese medicine, prized as symbols of wealth and served as exotic food.

Poaching gangs blamed for tiger density tumble in Nepal park
WWF website 2 Jul 08;

A Nepal wildlife reserve that boasted the highest density of tigers in the world is just half a decade later struggling to hold a few remaining tigers.

Conservationists were highly gratified when the first systematic sampling of the Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in border areas of western Nepal in 2004/05 revealed a tiger density of 17 per 100 km2, an estimated 27 tigers for the 305 km2 reserve.

But the joy was shortlived as the 2006/07 sampling showed tiger density declining almost two thirds to six per 100km2.

“We were perhaps too cautious in not ringing an alarm bell when the density declined in 2005/06,” said Anil Manandhar, Country Representative, WWF Nepal. “In the absence of any reported tiger poaching case [by the park authorities during 2004-06], we felt that reduced sampling could have been a reason for this observed decline and wanted to confirm it with another year of monitoring.”

However, a scientific monitoring program using camera traps in 93 locations carried out between December 2007 and March 2008 was able to identify only five tigers - two male and three female - in the Shuklaphanta core area.

The monitoring program is run by WWF in conjunction with the National Trust for Nature Conservation and the Nepalese government Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.

On WWF estimates, the park tiger population now stands at just seven, a density of just under three tigers per 100 km2. On government estimates, the total park tiger population stands between six and 14 tigers.

According to WWF two recent seizures of tiger bones inside the reserve as well as skin and bones from adjoining Dhangadi town and photographs of people with guns taken through camera traps are all indicative of organized poaching in Shuklaphanta.

“Also there is no noticeable outbreak of disease in the region,” said Manandhar.

Other human incursions into the park such as encroachment, illegal hunting, illegal fodder and fuelwood collection, illegal rampant timber collection and high grazing pressure are considered to have played a smaller role in the decline in tiger numbers.

WWF has decided to scale up its community-based anti-poaching operation outside Shuklaphanta, noting that a similar program called Operation Panthera outside Nepal’s Chitwan National Park has so far been a big success, with not one rhino poached outside Chitwan in the past year.

“We would like to repeat the same exercise around Shuklaphanta and will make sincere efforts to control poaching,” said Diwakar Chapagain, Wildlife Trade Manager of WWF Nepal.

“Although the tiger population in Shuklaphanta is severely depleted now, we strongly believe that it has not reached a point of no return and that with adequate protection and effective anti-poaching measures the tiger population in Shuklaphanta will bounce back.”