World Bank chief urges action to save wild tigers
By Lesley Wroughton, editing by Chris Wilson
WASHINGTON
Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:09pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) – World Bank President Robert Zoellick called on Wednesday for joint action among countries and organizations to save the dwindling numbers of wild tigers from extinction. There are barely 3,500 tigers left in the wild. Their declining numbers are blamed largely on poaching and the slow destruction of their natural habitat by deforestation. “2010, the Year of the Tiger, must be the year in which we take joint action to save this majestic species,” Zoellick said at a photo exhibition by the National Geographic Museum, which focuses on the plight of endangered tigers and other big cats. … “Part of what this is about is getting people not to see development and conservation as opposing poles but how you can try to connect them together,” Zoellick told Reuters Insider Television. “By working with the countries in the developing world, that’s the best chance to save this species, which after all is in the developing world.” A World Bank report in 2008 warned that “if current trends persist, tigers are likely to be the first species of large predator to vanish in historic times.” …
