World’s last remaining tigers clustered in 6 percent of available habitat

ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2010) — Researchers have revealed an ominous finding: most of the world’s last remaining tigers — long decimated by overhunting, logging, and wildlife trade — are now clustered in just six percent of their available habitat. The securing of the tiger’s remaining source sites is the most effective and efficient way of not only preventing extinction but seeding a recovery of the wild tiger, the study’s authors say. The researchers also assert that effective conservation efforts focused on these sites are both possible and economically feasible, requiring an additional $35 million a year for increased monitoring and enforcement to enable tiger numbers to double in these last strongholds. … “While the scale of the challenge is enormous, the complexity of effective implementation is not,” said Joe Walston, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Asia Program and lead author of the study. “In the past, overly ambitious and complicated conservation efforts have failed to do the basics: prevent the hunting of tigers and their prey. With 70 percent of the world’s wild tigers in just six percent of their current range, efforts need to focus on securing these sites as the number one priority for the species.” According to the paper, fewer than 3,500 tigers remain in the wild, of which only about 1,000 are breeding females. Walston and his co-authors identified 42 tiger source sites, which were defined as sites that contain breeding populations of tigers and have the potential to seed the recovery of tigers across wider landscapes. …

World’s last remaining tigers clustered in 6% of available habitat