MALAYAN TIGER

MALAYAN TIGER:

By WWF

Malayan tigers were classified as Indochinese tigers until DNA testing in 2004 showed them to be a separate subspecies. Their Latin name—Panthera tigris jacksoni—honors Peter Jackson, the famous tiger conservationist. Malayan tigers are found only on the Malay Peninsula and in the southern tip of Thailand.

Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jackson) map. - By Wikipedia

FACTS ABOUT MALAYAN TIGERS:

By TODAYonline

• STATUS:
  Critically Endangered
• POPULATION:
  250-340
• SCIENTIFIC NAME:
  Panthera tigris jacksoni
• WEIGHT:
  220–264 pounds
• HABITATS:
  Tropical moist broadleaf forests

WHY THEY MATTER:

SAVE TIGERS AND SAVE SO MUCH MORE

Protecting tiger habitats in Malaysia safeguards other species such as Asian elephants and mainland clouded leopards.

By WWF

THREATS:

HABITAT LOSS

By © Sylvia Jane Yorath 

Logging operations and road development pose big threats to Malayan tiger habitats. Conversion of forests to agriculture or commercial plantations results in frequent encounters between tigers and livestock.

The cost to farmers can be high—livestock loss due to tigers is estimated to have cost more than $400,000 from 1993–2003 in Terengganu, one of the poorest areas in Peninsular Malaysia. In retaliation, tigers are often killed by authorities or angry villagers. Tigers killed as “conflict” animals often end up on the black market, creating a link between human-tiger conflict and poaching.

ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE:

By Phys.org

Poachers have infiltrated the forests of Malaysia and plundered its wildlife, including tigers. Malaysian wildlife is in high demand in Asian markets for use as folk medicine and as a sign of wealth.

WHAT IS WWF DOING:

Assessing tiger habitat in forests adjacent to palm oil plantations in Malaysia.
By © Tshewang R. Wangchuk 

MITIGATING HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICT

WWF has led an initiative to reduce human-wildlife conflict through better livestock management. By helping farmers build more secure cattle sheds, livestock predation by tigers has been significantly reduced. WWF also managed to reverse a 2002 decision by a Malaysian state government to eliminate all tigers.

LAND-USE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

WWF helps state governments make tiger-friendly planning decisions. In addition, we work on management of High Conservation Value Forests to ensure protection of tiger habitats. WWF helps the government of Malaysia designate and develop wildlife corridors to maintain connectivity between forest areas alongside road construction.

TIGER RESEARCH

WWF has helped set up camera traps to monitor tiger populations and other wildlife. These surveys help us measure Malayan tiger populations and understand their habits.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

WWF knows that for tigers to survive, local communities must understand the importance of tiger conservation. Our education efforts include comic books describing how to avoid human-tiger conflict and a website developed for children.

FIGHTING WILDLIFE CRIME

The documentary On Borrowed Timehighlights the poaching crisis in the Banjaran Titiwangsa tiger landscape and was produced by WWF and TRAFFIC, the global wildlife trade monitoring network.

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The film, which uncovers a trail of wildlife crime, is a call to action against poaching and forest encroachment. The Belum-Temengor Forest Complex is one of the last refuges for amazing, yet highly threatened wildlife, such as the Malayan tiger, Asian elephant and Sunda pangolin.

By Wildlife Reserves Singapore

SOUTH CHINA TIGER

SOUTH CHINA TIGER:

South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis), Beijing zoo, China.- By © John Mackinnon

The South China tiger population was estimated to number 4,000 individuals in the early 1950s. In the next few decades, thousands were killed as the subspecies was hunted as a pest. The Chinese government banned hunting in 1979. By 1996 the population was estimated to be just 30-80 individuals.

By Wikipedia

Today the South China tiger is considered by scientists to be “functionally extinct,” as it has not been sighted in the wild for more than 25 years.

FACTS ABOUT SOTH CHINA TIGER:

By AnimalSake

• STATUS:
• Critically Endangered
• POPULATION:
  believed to be extinct in the wild
• SCIENTIFIC NAME:
  Panthera tigris amoyensis
• HABITATS:
  Southeast China-Hainan Moist Forests

WHY THY MATTER:

By WWF

South China tigers are a reminder that the threat against the world’s tiger is an urgent one. Today, South China tigers are found in zoos and in South Africa where there are plans to reintroduce captive-bred tigers back into the wild.

THREATS:

HABITAT IN PIECES

If any South China tigers remain in the wild, these few individuals would be found in montane sub-tropical evergreen forest of southeast China, close to provincial borders. The habitat is highly fragmented, with most blocks smaller than 200 square miles and not large enough to sustain a tiger population.

South China Tiger natural habitat (black) - By Wikipedia

HUNTED AS PESTS

Although China outlawed tiger hunting in 1979 and declared the South China tiger's survival a conservation priority in 1995, it is thought that even if a few individuals remain, no existing protected areas or habitat are sufficiently large, healthy or undisturbed enough to sustain viable tiger populations.

INDOCHINESE TIGER

INDOCHINESE TIGER:

In 2010, the alarm for the Indochinese tiger sounded because the population of this subspecies had fallen by more than 70% in just over a decade. Six countries—Thailand, Cambodia, China, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Vietnam—are now home to only around 350 tigers.

© Connie Lemperle / WWF-Greater Mekong

The region contains the largest combined area of tiger habitat in the world—equal to roughly the size of France. However, rapid development, such as road construction, is fragmenting habitats. Due to decades of rampant poaching many of the landscapes of this region have no tigers left in them.

By Wikipedia

There is hope in other remaining Indochinese tiger habitats, which have a relatively low human presence and offer a unique opportunity for tiger conservation. The best hope of the survival of this subspecies is in the Dawna Tennaserim landscape on the Thailand-Myanmar border where perhaps 250 tigers remain. WWF considers the forests of the Lower Mekong a restoration landscape with the possibility of reintroducing tigers as the habitat and prey base are there. Southern Laos and Central Vietnam also have potential for recovery of wild tiger populations.

By zmescience.com

Access to the areas where Indochinese tigers live is often restricted, and biologists have only recently been granted limited permits for field surveys. As a result, there is still much to learn about the status of these tigers in the wild.

FACTS ABOUT INDOCHINESE TIGERS:

© Howard Cheek / WWF-Greater Mekong

• STATUS:
• Endangered
• POPULATION:
  around 350 (2010 estimate)
• SCIENTIFIC NAME:
  Panthera tigris corbetti
• WEIGHT:
  396–550 pounds
• LENGTH:
  Average of nine feet from nose to tail
• HABITATS:
  Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, dry forest

WHY THEY MATTER:

Maintaining tiger habitats in the Greater Mekong directly benefits a host of other globally important species like Asian elephants, Asiatic black bear, a suite of wild cattle and many endemic deer.

© CK Wong / WWF-Greater Mekon

THREATS:

Indochinese tiger numbers are in shocking decline across its range because of shrinking habitats, expanding human populations, and the increasing demand for traditional medicines, folk remedies and wild meat.

POACHING AND ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE

↰ World Wildlife Fund

Vital tiger populations are also depleted by a growing commercial demand for wild meat in restaurants. In the Lower Mekong Forests region—Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam—prey densities are very low due to intensive hunting and weak law enforcement over the past few decades. Wild tigers are also poached in order to meet increasing demand for tiger body parts used in traditional medicine and new folk tonics. Tiger farms in Thailand, Vietnam and China maintain the demand for tiger products from all sources—including the wild—and worsen the poaching problem.

HABITAT LOSS:

By wwf.org.nz

While healthy habitats are extensive in some areas they are under constant pressure from agricultural plantations, mining concessions and inundation from hydropower development. Habitat fragmentation due to rapid development – especially the building of road networks—is a serious problem. This fragmentation forces what tigers are left into scattered, small refuges, which isolates populations and increases accessibility for poachers.

RARE  DISCOVERY:

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A rare population of Indochinese tigers has been discovered and filmed in the jungles of Eastern Thailand.

The tigers were found thanks to the efforts of Freeland and Panthera, two wildlife conservation groups working in conjunction with Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. These images and video, captured via camera trap and released on March 28, show not only adult tigers, but cubs. This is evidence of the “world’s second breeding Indochinese Tiger population…[and] the first evidence of a breeding population in Eastern Thailand in over 15 years” according to a press release issued by the organizations. Only about 8 percent of tiger grounds have confirmed breeding populations, Panthera reported, and this discovery indicates that the tigers could potentially disperse and repopulate the surrounding countries of Cambodia and Laos. Only 221 Indochinese Tigers are estimated to be alive in Thailand and Myanmar, according to the Freeland and Panthera press release. Thailand’s Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary is the only other known breeding ground for the giant felines.

By Shutterstock

BENGAL TIGER

BENGAL TIGER:

By WWF-India

The Bengal tiger is found primarily in India with smaller populations in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar. It is the most numerous of all tiger subspecies with more than 2,500 left in the wild. 

By © naturepl.com / Francois Savigny

The creation of India’s tiger reserves in the 1970s helped to stabilize numbers, but poaching to meet a growing demand from Asia in recent years has once again put the Bengal tiger at risk. 

The mangroves of the Sundarbans—shared between Bangladesh and India—are the only mangrove forests where tigers are found. The Sundarbans are increasingly threatened by sea level rise as a result of climate change

FACTS ABOUT BENGAL TIGER:

© Roger Hooper-Kanha National Park, MP, India

• STATUS:
  Endangered
• POPULATION:
  more than 2,500
• SCIENTIFIC NAME:
  Panthera tigris tigris
• WEIGHT:
  around 550 pounds

• 

  © DNPWC / WWF Nepal

  LENGTH:
  nearly 10 feet
• HABITATS:
  Dry and wet deciduous forests, grassland and temperate forests, mangrove forests

WHY THEY MATTER:

By © Staffan Widstrand

This tiger subspecies is at the top of the food chain in the wild. But tigers are also a vital link in maintaining the rich diversity of nature. When tigers are protected, we save so much more. For example, with just one tiger, we protect around 25,000 acres of forest. These ecosystems supply both nature and people with fresh water, food, and health.

THREATS:

Tigers suffer from a severe loss of natural prey like deer and antelopes.- By WWF India

PREY LOSS

Tigers suffer from a severe loss of natural prey like deer and antelopes. Prey numbers decline because of direct poaching for meat and trade, competition with livestock over food and habitat degradation because of excessive wood removal for fires.

CONFLICT WITH HUMANS

As tigers continue to lose their habitat and prey species, they are increasingly coming into conflict with humans as they attack domestic animals—and sometimes people. In retaliation, tigers are often killed by angry villagers.

HABITAT LOSS

By Bengal Tiger Conservation

Less than a hundred years ago, tigers prowled all across the Indian subcontinent. Exploding human populations, particularly since the 1940s, have resulted in major loss of tiger habitat. Habitats are further fragmented because of agriculture and the clearing of forests for developments like road networks. This forces tigers into small and scattered habitat patches.

ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE

By Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Before the international ban on tiger trade in 1993, tiger populations were being decimated by poaching and trade. Despite the ban in the past few decades, the illegal demand for tigers as status symbols, decorative items, and folk cures has increased dramatically, leading to a new poaching crisis. Poaching driven by the international illegal wildlife trade is the largest immediate threat to the remaining tiger population.

Nepal leads the way once again with an estimated 235 wild tigers,
close to doubling the population of 2009.
Watch what does it take to count this magnificent species.

A group of men arrested while trying to sell a tiger skin near Chandrapur, India
(By Yale E360)