Forgotten Tigers: Have Stripes Become Unfashionable? Do we still care about the fate of tigers? In 1999, teams of law enforcement and conservation officials visited 14 countries that were either home to an ever-decreasing number of tigers left in the wild or were places where body parts of tigers were being consumed (predominantly illegally). The report of their work, findings and recommendations[i] is, very depressingly, all too relevant still today. Interestingly, the report was one of the first occasions where it was indicated that organized crime groups and networks had become involved in wildlife trafficking. The number of tigers in the wild was estimated in the late 1990s to be somewhere between five and seven thousand. Surveys suggest that the number now may be slightly over three thousand. And this is despite umpteen projects, seminars, conferences and international initiatives. Such actions date back to the establishment of Project Tiger in 1973, when the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Ghandi, reacted to the realization that this species was headed towards extinction. The amount of money that has been spent in the intervening period must total many hundreds of thousands of dollars. If numbers of tigers are used as a measurement of success, our efforts have failed. And failed miserably. read more:
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 17:03:40 +0000
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