CABI Blog

If, like me, you were born in Year of the Tiger, you’ll be glad to know that tiger people are lively and brave, are well liked and always land on their feet. Unfortunately, for tigers in the wild the outlook for 2010 doesn’t look too good…

Tigers are under a severe and growing threat from poaching (see Chapron et al., 2008). Their skins are sold as luxury items and tiger parts are used in traditional medicines. In addition, tigers suffer from habitat destruction, and prime tiger territories such as the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans are under threat from rising sea levels (see Gilman et al., 2008).

Now we come to the problems of human/tiger conflict. Tigers are often perceived as a threat by livestock farmers, and locals who gather materials from tiger-inhabited forests fear the risk of attack. Studies suggest that monitoring of potentially dangerous tigers by fitting them with radio collars may help to avoid conflict, along with local people participating in conservation awareness programs focused on tiger behaviour (Gurung et al., 2008).

Further reading:

For more information on the use of selective logging in tiger conservation please see Rayan et al. (2009).

Also visit CAB Abstracts to find more information on tiger conservation.

Thanks to:

The Environmental Investigation Agency’s Tigers campaign
World Wide Fund for Nature’s Tigers in crisis

References
The impact on tigers of poaching versus prey depletion.
Chapron, G.; Miquelle, D. G.; Lambert, A.; Goodrich, J. M.; Legendre, S.; Clobert, J.; Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, Journal of Applied Ecology, 2008, 45, 6, 1667-1674, 44 ref.

Threats to mangroves from climate change and adaptation options: a review.
Gilman, E. L.; Ellison, J.; Duke, N. C.; Field, C.; Dahdouh-Guebas, F.; Koedam, N.; Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Aquatic Botany, 2008, 89, 2, 237-250.

Factors associated with human-killing tigers in Chitwan National Park, Nepal.
Gurung, B.; Smith, J. L. D.; McDougal, C.; Karki, J. B.; Barlow, A.; Elsevier, Oxford, UK, Biological Conservation, 2008, 141, 12, 3069-3078, many ref.

The importance of selectively logged forests for tiger Panthera tigris conservation: a population density estimate in Peninsular Malaysia.
Rayan, D. M.; Shariff Wan Mohamad; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, Oryx, 2009, 43, 1, 48-51, 23 ref.