Fewer tigers to welcome their year

• Source: Global Times
• [02:11 February 09 2010]
• Comments

Workers put up Spring Festival decorations at a tiger cage at the Hengdaohezi animal breeding center in Heilongjiang Province Monday. Photo CFP

"The northeast tiger is now stable, and may be increasing a little, but the number is still very small," she added.

"But last year was the first year I've felt a lot of confidence in the support of the central government, the State Forestry Administration and local governments," Xie added.

"We see improvements in the management of nature reserves, we see the understanding of local communities, so I hope the tiger year will be the turning point for tiger conservation in China," she said.

The Hunchun Nature Reserve opened in 2001 in Jilin, becoming the country's first such habitat for Siberian tigers. In 2006, Jilin introduced regional regulations stipulating compensation for people whose livestock were attacked by wild tigers, an official effort to ease tensions between humans and tigers amid increasing competition over living space and resources.

Poaching in order to procure the highly demanded skins and bones of tigers was also a major factor for the shrinkage in the number of wild tigers. China has banned the use of tiger parts in medicine, but everything from the fur and whiskers to eyeballs and bones are feared still sought.

The black-market price for a tiger is as high as $80,000, according to He of the IFAW.

"Once the trend of mass consumption is stimulated, it will be very dangerous for the wild tigers, as the cost of killing tigers is much lower than raising them," He said.

The State Forestry Bureau vowed last month to strengthen the protection of wild tigers and severely crack down on the illicit smuggling of and trade in tiger parts.

The Indochinese tiger is also on the brink of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 left in the forests of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, reports say.

Siberian tigers are far more numerous just across the border in Russia, where around 500 still live in an area with a lighter human presence.

China last month pledged to double the number of wild tigers by the year 2022 and called for the protection of habitats to save the animals from extinction.

More tigers are now living in zoos or breeding centers. The Siberian Tiger Park in Heilongjiang Province, for example, has raised more than 900 of the felines.

The WWF says the tiger faces extinction by 2022.

Global Times – Agencies