The Fragile State of Tigers

“By not holding ourselves to the standards of nature, the same standards to which tigers are bound by their own natures... we deny reality. The current state of the world is one of ecological crisis, but I urge you to view these distress signals as invitations to mature as a society and as a species.” - John Vaillant, Ten Lessons From a Tiger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6J7_nZi9LQ

Asia, a continent once home to one hundred thousand roaming tigers now has lost every single last wild Javan tiger, Bali tiger, Caspian tiger and since one has not been sighted for 25 years, most likely every last South China tiger. We aren’t referring to millenniums of evolution here- this has happened in the last single century.

What has caused such a catastrophic decline in population? What do tigers need that we have taken from them? Let's try to understand humans destructive relationship with the majestic Panthera Tigris over the past century, and whether there is any hope of bringing tigers back from the brink of extinction.

First of all, let's start with the species that are still surviving in the wild. The Sumatran tiger, who can only found in Sumatra, an Island off the coast of Indonesia. There are less than 400 in existence, so this tiger is officially classed as critically endangered. The Bengal tiger, who mostly lives in India, but there are pockets of them in China, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Marking their territory across a range of forests and grasslands, they make up the bulk of remaining tigers with about 2500 left.

The South China tiger, believed to be extinct in the wild as none have been sighted for 25 years. There are about 60 left in captivity.

The Malayan tiger, lives in Malaysia on the Peninsula and in the southern tip of Thailand, inhabiting tropical moist forest. There are about 250 left in the wild, but as this tiger's numbers have recently declined 25% in just one generation, we may take from this that not many of the are breeding. The Siberian tiger, one of the more stable populations of tiger, as they have the largest roaming land. They inhabit forest areas of Eastern Russia, and small populations have been recorded in China and North Korea. Classed as endangered, with only 500 remaining. The Indochinese tiger, another case of an alarming rate of population decline, the Indochinese tigers numbers had also dropped 70% in one decade, when analysed in 2010. 250 remain living on the border between Thailand and Burma, but WWF have identified new areas in the region to attempt to reintroduce this tiger to. There has also very recently been a discovery of a small breeding population in Bhutan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39423053

A Human's History with Tigers In reference to the TED talk by John Vaillant at the start of this article... throughout history, derived from a time when tigers were a threat to humans and not the other way round, man has always believed that the natural world is there for him to conquer and use up for his own desires.

Tigers have called planet earth home for as long as we have, and cultures, stories and animal lovers alike hold the species on a pedestal, representing them as mythical, intelligent, courageous and strong. They are honoured for their power, beauty and grace, but instead of admiring from a distance, culture has led people over history to believe that they to will be appear wealthy or become protected and healed by the power of a tiger if they kill them, wear their fur, eat them, put their bones in a soup or their whiskers on a necklace. This may sound like something that just happened once upon a time, but as countries in China and other regions of Asia have become more affluent, the demand has actually grown. The truth is, it just doesn't work and the sooner these traditions are stamped out, the more chance we have of saving tigers. In taking from them, we are actually removing their power, strength and eventually beauty if they disappear forever.

Where 'look but do not touch' is not enough, maybe more of us can take wisdom from Attenborough when he says in an interview with the Metro: "I’m not an animal lover if that means you think things are nice if you can pat them. But I am intoxicated by animals."

Artwork: The Global Tiger Recovery Plan. Read here: http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2016/07/GTRP_Nov11_Final_Version_Eng.pdf

Confessions of a tiger poacher Personally, I want to understand more about the circumstances of poachers- I know that, as in any illegal trade the merchants at the top request the illegal commodity from the locals on the ground in exchange for a fraction of the money that they will receive on the black market. It is obvious that poachers aren't deliberately destructive people and that money is their sole motivation, so how can we block the demand from the top and provide support and solutions for those at the bottom? Projects like those in the following WWF videos involve approaching poachers and convincing them to instead work to protect the tigers. Unsurprisingly, once the opportunity is offered, the poachers interviewed work to encourage other poachers to get involved. They feel good about the protection laws and bad about what they have done in the past. It's a sustainable solution for all involved, but can it roll out successfully more widely? Could every current poacher become a protector? Confessions of a tiger poacher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbepPhTd9fY The ranger with a hunting past: https://vimeo.com/203971018

As well as poaching, tigers are killed by locals in retaliation when they kill farmers livestock. As people in such poor areas depend on their animals to put food on the table, we fast need a solution that works both for locals and tigers.

Habitat loss and habitat divide

As with most stories of species decline, humans change the earth's landscape far quicker than it takes animals to naturally evolve and adapt.

The remaining few thousand tigers live across forests, mangrove swamps, grasslands and savannas and with each of these habitats comes different destruction and further threats. Tigers have lost 93% of their historic range since our world population boomed in the last 100 years. Specifically in Asia, the population has quadrupled in the last century and is now at 4,478,315,164. That figure really puts the remaining 3800 tigers into perspective! As the population expands, forest area declines. What we call development, so the building of roads, pipelines and agricultural land cuts right down the middle of tigers habitats, dividing land and blocking routes for hunting, breeding and building territories. They require a vast amount of space- 25000 acres of forest must be saved just to protect one tiger. In conserving this space, we are holding onto forest that is vital for water, food and health for humans too. We are also protecting the homes of countless other species including leopards and elephants. Check here for a deeper understanding of threats to specific habitats: https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tiger According to the WWF though, they have identified the right areas to conserve and grow tiger populations for now, so if breeding into these areas becomes successful, commodifying tigers and poaching as a result will remain the most urgent threat, which leaves us with the questions:

How do you break such strong routed traditions and beliefs within an entire culture? Will these practices go out of fashion if we can awaken an understanding in people?

(Photo: WWF) Hope The WWF along with each government of a tiger inhabited country and in collaboration with local organisations on the ground have set their conservation hopes extremely high through the groundbreaking TX2 project. "Tx2 is the first time that countries across the wild tigers’ entire range have come together and collaborated on tiger conservation. Tx2 is a bold, innovative and optimistic goal – the aim is to not just save tigers, but to be proactive about their future." -WWF Their goal, since 2010 has been to double the number of wild tigers before the year 2022. In order to do so, this would mean 267 (rounded up) tigers would have to be born each year to achieve the target. When the goal was set in 2010, there were roughly 3200 tigers remaining and in 2016, results came out that numbers have climbed to around 3800, as mentioned earlier. So even with monumental effort, that is 100 tigers a year born so far. To still achieve 6400 tigers by 2022, that will mean upping the amount of tigers born a year to 520 for the next 5 years! Regardless, the world really becoming more aware of how close to the bone we are to loosing this species forever, and every effort is better than no effort. With projects like these, there is hope. If you'd like to find out more details and donate to the TX2 project, head to their website here: http://tigers.panda.org/tx2/