Dying Stripes

In Chinese mythology, tigers are highly revered. And the great cats have historically inspired everyone from poets to warriors. They now also symbolize vanishing environments that support both animals and humans. There’s a saying that when the tiger disappears, the forests will fall.
According to the Save the Tiger Fund, wild tiger numbers worldwide have slid from one lakh as recently as a century ago to as low as 3200 last year. Extinction looms ominously for the Siberian tiger, the world’s largest cat. A 2009 report by the Siberian Tiger Monitoring Program, which was coordinated by the Wildlife Conservation Society in association with Russian government organizations amongst others, revealed that recent Siberian tiger numbers have plummeted by 41 percent.
 

“That came as a big shock,” said Judy Mills, coordinator for the International Tiger Coalition.  
 

“Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright”

National and international leaders agree. In late 2009, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin unveiled a $1 billion effort to save the Siberian tiger. An international summit with the World Bank in Vladivostok, Russia, last September has set the goal of doubling wild tiger numbers worldwide to 6500 by 2022.
Conservation organizations carried out a series of national workshops leading up to Putin’s tiger summit in Vladivostok. But China’s decisions carry special weight that could either save or doom wild tigers.
Wildlife experts point back to 1993, which was when the Chinese government banned the trade in tiger parts used for traditional Chinese medicine. The move helped to curb consumer demand, which has consistently driven poachers to hunt down wild tigers.
“China shut down an entire industry that made millions of dollars per year by making medicine from tiger bones,” Mills explained. “I think we have wild tigers in the numbers we have today because China made that bold move.”
But a black market continues to supply tiger skins, tiger bones, and “tiger wine” made from crushed bone, mainly to satisfy the demand of wealthy individuals and high-level officials among whom it is a status symbol.
And tiger farms don’t hold any hope for the wild tiger’s future, adds Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Captive tigers have no idea how to hunt or fend for themselves in the wild, and are likely to end up getting killed by wild tigers. Or worse—turn into man-eaters looking to humans for easier prey.
But wild tigers can rebound if we give them the chance.
 
Read the complete article about how tigers may be saved in the September issue of Reader’s Digest.