Nepal conference to focus on tiger crisis

[Guest guest]

[image: A tiger captured by a camera trap laid by the Wildlife Institute of

India officials at Western Ghats.Photo:Special Arrangement]

 

 

A tiger captured by a camera trap laid by the Wildlife Institute of India

officials at Western Ghats.Photo:Special Arrangement

 

http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article37133.ece

 

Tiger experts and government officials from 20 countries including 14 tiger

range nations are meeting in Nepal’s capital next week to discuss issues

relating to protection of the habitat of the critically endangered big cat.

 

The World Wildlife Fund, National Nature Conservation Trust and Save the

Tiger Fund/USA are taking up the joint initiative for the four day global

tiger conference and the first International Tiger Workshop on October 27.

 

The workshop hopes to generate awareness among people about the state of the

tiger, a species that suffers severe population decline in all range

countries, and had become ‘locally extinct’ in some tiger reserves in India.

The objectives of the event were highlighted by Deputy Director of the

Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Megh Bahadur Pandey.

 

 

*“Human intervention main cause for declining* *tiger population”*

 

There are an estimated 4,000 tigers in the wild around the globe at present.

In India, a report issued last year by the Tiger Conservation Authority put

the estimate at 1,411 individuals at the time of the census. The tiger

population has declined from 100,000 since the beginning of the 20th

century, mainly due to human intervention, experts say.

 

The forthcoming conference aims to focus on the factors responsible for the

tiger-human conflict and the scope to protect the big cat’s prey and

habitat. Among the major factors affecting tigers — even in designated

reserves — is the hunting of prey animals such as deer, sambhar and wild

pig. The encroachment of forests for grazing is also leading to the

human-animal conflict, as the tigers prey on domestic cattle. Grazing is

also responsible for the loss of vegetation that would otherwise support the

prey base of deer and sambhar.

 

Besides representatives from tiger range countries such as Nepal, India,

China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand, experts from the U.S. and

international conservation groups will also participate in the tiger

workshop.