India's tiger population 'on the rise'

Yahoo News 27 Mar 11;

NEW DELHI (AFP) – India's tiger population has increased for the first time in decades, a newspaper said on Saturday, citing a national tiger census report slated to be released next week.

According to the 2009-10 tiger census report, the number roaming India has jumped to 1,510-1,550 from 1,411 in 2004-05, The Indian Express newspaper said.

The newspaper report came ahead of an international tiger conservation conference due to open on Monday in the Indian capital New Delhi.

India is home to more than half of the world's rapidly dwindling wild tiger population, but its conservation programme, said by the government to be the world's most comprehensive, has been struggling to halt the big cat's decline.

Tiger conservationists welcomed the news and said that the population increase was due to the authorities surveying more areas to conduct the census and creating more tiger reserves.

Tito Joseph, programme director at the Wildlife Protection Society of India, said "the latest census included some of the areas they left out last time because of problems accessing the terrain, like the Sunderbans" which is home to hundreds of tigers.

The Sunderbans mangrove forest straddles the borders of India's West Bengal state and Bangladesh and lies on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta.

"They have also set up more tiger reserves. In 2004 there were only 28-33 tiger reserves, now there are 39 reserves, so that's obviously helped," Joseph told AFP.

"It's a good strategy, because tigers need space above all, and if you can create inviolate space their numbers will naturally go up," he said.

The current tiger population still remains a long way off the numbers registered in 2002 when some 3,700 tigers were estimated to be alive in the country.

There were estimated to be around 40,000 tigers in India at the time of independence from Britain in 1947.

Authorities across Asia are waging a major battle against poachers and other man-made problems such as destruction of the tigers' habitat due to industrial expansion.

A major poacher trafficking route begins in India and ends in China where tiger parts are highly prized as purported cures for a range of ailments and as aphrodisiacs.

"Tiger skins fetch anywhere around 11,000-21,000 US dollars and bones are sold for about 1,000 US dollars in China," said Rajesh Gopal, chairman of National Tiger Conservation Authority in New Delhi.

India releases tiger numbers as experts convene
WWF 28 Mar 11;

New Delhi, India – The Indian Government today released new tiger population numbers for the first time since 2007, indicating that numbers have increased in the country that has half of the world’s remaining wild tigers.

The government estimated current tiger numbers in India at 1,706, up from 1,411 during the last count in 2007. However, the 1,706 figure includes an additional tiger reserve in the count, the Sundarbans, that contained 70 tigers. This area was not counted in 2007.

Therefore, when comparing the previous survey with the current one, the official estimate stands at 1,636 when leaving out the Sundarbans, or an increase of 225.

Figures were broken down by site with some populations showing increases, and others falling.

“As seen from the results, recovery requires strong protection of core tiger areas and areas that link them, as well as effective management in the surrounding areas,” said Mike Baltzer, Head of WWF’s Tigers Alive Initiative. “With these two vital conservation ingredients, we can not only halt their decline, but ensure tigers make a strong and lasting comeback.”

The figures marked the opening of the International Tiger Conservation Conference, a three day meeting following on the heels of the groundbreaking Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP), a worldwide plan to bring the species back from the brink of extinction which was forged in November 2010 at an international tiger conservation meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia organized by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The count was conducted by India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority with key partners, including WWF, in the largest tiger population survey ever undertaken.

“These numbers give us hope for the future of tigers in the wild, and that India continues to play an integral role in the tiger’s recovery,” said WWF International Director General Jim Leape, who is chairing a conference session on the role of international and national partners in the GTRP's implementation.

In its detail, this tiger estimation exercise shows the importance India attaches to this prime conservation issue,” said WWF India CEO Ravi Singh. “The results indicate the need to intensify field based management and intervention to go beyond the present benchmark, bringing more people and partners into the process.”

Several areas in India, including those that are not Tiger Reserves and outside national parks, were intensively surveyed for the first time. The Moyar Valley and Sigur Plateau in Southwest India’s Western Ghats Complex, that has been a focus of recent WWF conservation efforts, was found to contain more than 50 tigers. Similarly, the Ramnagar Forest Reserve outside Corbett National Park showed a good number of tigers.

In addition to high-level officials from the 13 countries that still have tigers, the conference is expected to hear from key NGOs and global partners in the GTRP, including the World Bank’s Global Tiger Initiative, the Global Tiger Forum, WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), the Smithsonian Institute, the wildlife trade network TRAFFIC, CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

Numbering more than 100,000 at the turn of the last century, tigers have lost more than 97 percent of their population and 94 percent of their home range in just 100 years. They live in increasingly isolated pockets of land in Asia and the Russian Far East in Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China and Russia. The Global Tiger Recovery Programme marks the first formalized international initiative to save the species from extinction.

India's tiger census shows numbers on the rise
Nirmala George Associated Press Yahoo News 28 Mar 11;

NEW DELHI – India's latest tiger census shows an increase in the numbers of the endangered big cat, but threats to their roaming territory could reverse those gains, officials said Monday.

The census counted at least 1,706 tigers in forests across the country, about 300 more than four years ago, a government official said Monday.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh called the increase good news but cautioned against any complacency in efforts to save the iconic animal from extinction.

"The rise in numbers is the result of sustained efforts, but the shrinking of tiger corridors is alarming," Ramesh said.

Wildlife experts who conducted the census said tiger corridors, which are the routes frequently used by the big cats to move from one reserve to another, had declined sharply as huge power projects, mining and roads cut into their habitats.

"Securing these corridors should be taken up as a priority," said Rajesh Gopal, director, National Tiger Conservation Authority.

But with India pushing ahead with its economic agenda, the threat to the tiger increases as the government tries to juggle the competing claims of development and wildlife conservation, Ramesh said.

Unlike earlier tiger estimates, when pugmarks of individual tigers were counted, this time round conservationists used hidden cameras and DNA tests to count the cats in 17 Indian states where tigers live in the wild.

"The count is more scientific this time and therefore more accurate," Gopal said.

The census included 70 tigers in the eastern Indian Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, which had not been counted in the last census in 2007. Not counting the Sunderbans population, the latest count reflects an increase of about 16 percent.

The 2007 census had shown 1,411 tigers, a sharp fall in the population from about 3,600 five years earlier.

A century ago, about 100,000 tigers roamed India's forests.

Shrinking habitats have brought the wild cats into conflict with farmers who live near tiger reserves and poachers who kill them for pelts and body parts, highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

The release of the latest tiger census results coincided with the start of a three-day international conference to follow up on progress made at the 2010 St. Petersburg summit of 13 countries that are home to wild tigers.

At the New Delhi meeting, countries will present strategies to implement the Global Tiger Recovery Program adopted in St. Petersburg which includes plans to double the tiger population by 2022, crack down on poaching and on trading in illicit tiger pelts and body parts.

(This version corrects number of tiger states in India in paragraph 8.)

India's tiger numbers up in new count
Rupam Jain Nair Yahoo News 28 Mar 11;

NEW DELHI (AFP) – India, home to most of the world's wild tigers, on Monday reported a rise in the animal's numbers for the first time in years in a rare piece of good news for conservationists.

The census found 1,706 tigers in India last year, compared with 1,411 in 2006, officials in New Delhi announced -- though they said much of the increase was due to more thorough counting.

"We have expanded the survey to cover the entirety of India and our estimate is now more accurate," said Rajesh Gopal of Project Tiger, the government's tiger conservation body.

Increased surveying included coverage of difficult terrain such as the Sunderbans mangrove forest, which straddles the borders of India's West Bengal state and Bangladesh.

The count -- using hidden cameras and DNA samples from droppings -- found 70 tigers in the Sunderbans, which was not included in the last census.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh welcomed the figures as "a very encouraging sign" but warned the upturn should not lead to complacency as the tigers' habitat was being seriously reduced.

"The threat from poachers, international smuggling networks and powerful mining companies continue to pose threat to the endangered animal," Ramesh said.

"Four years ago, tigers occupied 93,600 square kilometres (36,000 square miles) but now the area has shrunk to 72,800 square kilometers," he said, adding that this was "a worrying" development.

More than half of the world's rapidly dwindling wild tiger population live in India, but the country's conservation programme has been struggling to halt the big cat's decline.

The current tiger population still remains a long way off the numbers registered in 2002 when some 3,700 tigers were estimated to be alive in the country.

There were thought to be around 40,000 tigers in India at the time of independence from Britain in 1947.

Conservationists said the increase in numbers indicates a general growth trend but that the decline in the total area occupied by the tiger needed urgent attention.

"Shrinking area is an added threat, we need to expand this to create a fresh base to be able to increase the tiger population in India," Belinda Wright, director of Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), told AFP.

Authorities across Asia are waging a major battle against poachers, who often sell body parts to the lucrative traditional Chinese medicine market, and other man-made problems such as development leading to habitat loss.

In the last year, the Indian government has relocated nearly 3,000 families living in tiger reserves and plans to move another 50,000 families in the next five years.