More tigers killed in India

12/12/2006 00:00:00 October 2007. Two tigers have been poisoned in northeastern India by angry villagers after the tigers killed some cattle.

Officials recovered the carcasses of a young male and female tiger on the outskirts of the Orang National Park.

S. Momin a local wildlife official said 'A tiger had killed a water buffalo, dragged the kill inside the National Park and had gone for a drink. Villagers who may have watched the event laced the carcass with poison.'

Last year two other tigers were killed by angry villagers near Orang, which is home to an estimated 20 tigers. The park is some 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Gauhati, the capital of India's Assam state. We have already lost three species of tiger, the Java, Bali and Bearded Caspian species, and we are rapidly losing the rest. It is believed that there maybe less than 5000 tigers left in the wild (some observers think it may be as few as 1500), of which about 3000 are in India, compared with perhaps 100,000 at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

However, despite the efforts of many, the numbers are still declining rapidly. Recent news reports show that poaching is still prevalent, and it appears that tigers are dissappearing as fast today as at any time in the last 300 years.

A major new report has shown that tigers have disappeared from 40% of their range in the last 10 years, but plans their survival route. See report and map.

STOP PRESS Tiger skin trade in Tibet continues unabated, see some og the most unbelievable photos, click here. Habitat loss
Poaching is the major cause of tiger mortality, but not the only one. Unfortunately for the tiger, it lives in parts of the world with the fastest growing populations. It is estimated that 15% of the Himalayas forest cover has been lost in the last 20 years, and although that it is not nearly as bad as some parts of the world, this is the key habitat for the largest remaining populations of tigers. The fragmentation of this habitat combined with the reduction in numbers of many key species means that soon, even if poaching were stopped today, there just would not be enough habitat left to support tigers in the wild.

There are a few rays of good news with the Dalai Lama appealing to Tibetans not to wear animal skins and the Chinese government banning the trade in endangered species, but we will wait to see what effect these have on the recent carnage.

In contrast, latest reports suggest that Siberian tiger numbers are stable. Click here for more details.

Business plan aims to increase tiger number by fifty percent.