Tigers in trouble twice over - February 14, 2008
News breaking today reveals tiger woes continuing in both India and Indonesia.
A report from the Traffic conservation group, the IUCN and the WWF reveals that Indonesia has failed to stop body parts of the stripy cats being sold. The group found teeth, claws, skin and bones on sale in 10% of 326 shops surveyed in 2006 in Sumatra. It believes at least 23 tigers must have been killed to supply these items (report PDF).
“This is down from an estimate of 52 killed per year in 1999–2002. Sadly, the decline in availability appears to be due to the dwindling number of tigers left in the wild,” says Julia Ng, lead author on The Tiger Trade Revisited in Sumatra, Indonesia repot (press release).
Traffic says there are only 400 to 500 Sumatran tigers left, the beast list listed by the IUCN as critically endangered.
However Tonny Soehartono, the forestry Ministry director of biodiversity conservation, questioned whether the parts being sold were actually Sumatran tigers and asked if DNA tests were used. “The TRAFFIC report is not balanced. The fact is that we work hard to protect Sumatran tigers,” he says in The Jakarta Post.
In Reuters’s coverage though he admits that the government does need to do more. Best local spin on this story comes from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the United States: Atlanta’s tigers facing oblivion in wild. The AJC is currently front runner in the Great Beyond’s ‘Aberdeen Man Lost At Sea’ Prize*.
Over in India things aren’t much better.
A new survey says there are only 1,411 tigers left in the wild (report PDF). This is getting quite a lot of media coverage (eg AFP, The Guardian, The Times of India).
Frankly I’m surprised this is surprising to anyone. Last year it was reported by a number of people that there were only 1,300 left. said Belinda Wright, head of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, isn’t surprised either: “This is disastrous news but comes as no surprise. Wildlife crime is so entrenched and we are not prepared for it,” she told AFP.
* named in honour of the headline run by a Scottish local paper on the sinking of the Titanic.
Image: FWS
Comments
is there any reason why these poachers cant simply be shot? if they were going round killing people and selling their parts they would get executed. in what possible way is killing a critically endangered tiger less of a crime than killing a human?
let weathy texan oil men go on hunting safaris in these regions (and pay for the privilege) to hunt down the filth that poach these magnificent creatures.
its time to stop pussy-footing about this problem and take these scumbags out
Posted by: marty k | February 14, 2008 04:14 PM