Tigers in Peril

ByABC News
July 20, 2006, 4:20 AM

July 20, 2006 — -- Wild tigers are in a "precarious state," as they face increased threats from poachers and a rapidly shrinking habitat, according to a new report.

A new study released by the World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Save the Tiger Fund estimates that in the last decade, tigers have lost about 40 percent of their traditional habitat in Southeast Asia, India and Indochina.

"This is disturbing news," says Eric Dinerstein, a chief scientist with the World Wildlife Fund and an author of the study. "Another decade like the last will be catastrophic."

In addition to lost habitat, the report notes that increasing demand from China and Southeast Asia for tiger parts used in folk medicines and for exotic clothing and jewelry has fueled a booming poaching industry.

Even the Indian government -- which believed it had made recent progress protecting the big cats -- has now launched an investigation into widespread poaching on its tiger reserves, the report says.

Tigers are now found on only 7 percent of the traditional range they occupied a century ago, according to the study.

The report recommends building partnerships with governments and local communities to create and maintain tiger conservation landscapes that use corridors through populated areas to link larger habitat areas, giving the animals the space they need.

Dinerstein points to the success of programs in the Russian Far East and in the Terai Arc Landscape in Nepal and India, where tigers have begun using the corridors and local communities have begun anti-poaching programs.

Still, experts say there will be conflicts as human populations expand into traditional tiger territory and the desire for wild tiger parts goes up.

"We need to find ways to make tigers worth more alive than dead," Dinerstein says.

Dinerstein says farmers could be compensated for livestock that tigers kill for food. There are plans, he says, to bring governments with a stake in tiger survival together for a "tiger summit" within the next 18 months. The summit will address the most pressing issues and strategies needed to save tigers from extinction.