THE tiger economies of Asia are killing off tigers in the wild.
In the past decade, the king of the jungle鈥檚 habitat has shrunk by 40 per cent as prawn farms, palm-oil plantations and highways hem in the last tigers, which now survive in just 76 enclaves of wilderness. The tigers鈥� status, revealed in a new study compiled by WWF and other conservation groups, comes amid growing recognition that different tiger populations may be more diverse than we thought.
According to an analysis of a tiger census and satellite images that reveal changes in habitat, there are only four remaining strongholds where more than 500 tigers can live and hunt. All are remote border regions: between Russia and China, India and Nepal, India and Burma and Thailand and Burma. The survey concludes that police action against poachers and traders in tiger skins and other body parts will only work if the habitats are also protected.
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The tiger now occupies about 7 per cent of its former range, a total area roughly twice the size of Texas. With more tigers in cages in Texas itself than living free in the whole of Asia, the animal is rapidly ceasing to be primarily a wild animal. Many believe that only new safeguards can prevent it from soon disappearing from the wild altogether.
Meanwhile, there are growing concerns that poor knowledge about the differences between tiger species has skewed conservation activities and captive breeding programmes.
A recent study of the bone structure of tigers from different parts of Asia has confirmed genetic studies suggesting that conventional tiger taxonomy is wrong (Mammalian Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.mambio.2006.02.007). The last 500 or so wild Sumatran tigers, previously regarded as a subspecies of the mainland Indo-Chinese tiger, now appear to qualify as a distinct species, says Colin Groves of the Australian National University. So too does the Javanese tiger, which was hunted to extinction in the 1980s.
