World's tigers poached to extinction within 20 years
By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Tigers could become extinct in the wild in two decades unless the world ramps up conservation efforts to halt the decline in their population, wildlife experts said on Wednesday. Barely 3,500 tigers are estimated to be roaming in the wild in 12 Asian countries and Russia compared with about 100,000 a century ago, experts and conservationists said. Tigers are being illegally killed for their body parts and Asia is a hotspot for the illegal wildlife trade which the international police organization Interpol estimates may be worth more than $20 billion a year. Skins sell as rugs and cloaks on the black market, where a skin can fetch up to $20,000 in countries like China. Habitat destruction and depletion of prey base were other perils facing the “Asian heritage”, conservationists said. “A business as usual approach in tiger conservation will doom the tiger population in the next 15 to 20 years,” Mahendra Shrestha, program director of the Washington-based Save the Tiger Fund told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference on tiger conservation. …
