As the biggest member of the cat household, tigers are compellingly highly effective and stealthy. It’s no surprise they’ve been one in every of nature’s most feared predators for roughly two million years!
However in simply the previous 150 years, the tiger’s vary has shrunk by almost 95%. The inhabitants within the wild is now solely round 4,500 tigers. Learn the way conservationists goal to extend that quantity by way of safety efforts fueled partly by eco-tourism.
Tigers: Dealing with Extinction
Tigers are native to Asia, however their vary right this moment is way smaller than up to now. It doesn’t assist that they inhabit many locations with enormous human populations which are rising exponentially. Their vary consists of Southeast Asia, India (roughly 3,000 of the world’s wild tigers are present in India), western China and a few elements of Russia, with small breeding populations in Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Russia and Nepal.
There’s a persistent fable that wild tigers might be present in Africa, however that’s not based mostly on scientific reality. Tigers, lions, leopards and jaguars are all a part of the Felidae household of cats, which did originate in Africa a few million years in the past. However since then, an offshoot of Felidae migrated east into Asia, the place these cats advanced into the orange-, black- and white-striped tigers we all know and love right this moment.
As soon as they established populations all through Asia, tigers by no means returned to Africa. They’ll solely be discovered there in zoos, particular reserves and personal residences, the place they’re typically sadly saved as pets.
© Conan Dumenil
Sadly, three subspecies of tiger are already extinct: the Bali tiger (Panthera tigris balica), the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) and the Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica). One species, the South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis), is believed solely to outlive in captivity.
The opposite 5 species of tigers (Sumatran, Amur/Siberian, Bengal, Indochinese and Malayan tigers) are endangered. Among the largest threats to their survival embody unlawful poaching, lack of habitat on account of agriculture and urbanization, and discount in prey availability. The usage of their physique elements for amulets and conventional ‘drugs’ drives the poaching commerce, in addition to the astronomical worth their attractive pelts fetch on the black market.
World Tiger Day
However there’s hope on the horizon! World Tiger Day is widely known yearly on July 29 as a method to increase consciousness about this magnificent however endangered huge cat. The day was based in 2010—a 12 months of the Tiger within the Chinese language Zodiac calendar—on the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit.
In the course of the summit, the world’s 13 tiger-range international locations (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Viet Nam) got here collectively to create Tx2: a worldwide initiative with the purpose to double the variety of wild tigers. This resulted within the World Tiger Restoration Plan, which offers a blueprint for every nation to succeed in the TX2 goal. Many well-known animal organizations, corresponding to IFAW and the Smithsonian Institute, are concerned with TX2 and World Tiger Day.
When TX2 launched in 2010, there have been roughly 3,200 tigers within the wild. Consultants now estimate that quantity has risen to 4,500, whereas a latest tiger evaluation from the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature places the quantity between 3,726 to five,578—a 40% enhance because the IUCN’s final tiger evaluation in 2015!
4 Locations to Journey for Tigers
1. India
India holds the biggest inhabitants of tigers on the planet for a purpose. Challenge Tiger, a conservation program initiated by Indira Gandhi, has been energetic there since 1973, and it’s credited with the formation of greater than 25 extremely monitored tiger reserves on reclaimed lands the place human improvement is banned. The trouble has helped to triple the variety of wild Bengal tigers because the early 70s.
Bengal tigers are unbelievable animals that may attain as much as 13 toes in size and weigh as much as 660 kilos. Regardless of their enormous measurement, they’ll attain speeds of about 35 to 40 miles per hour. Like most cats, Bengal tigers are solitary hunters, sneaking up on their prey because of their stripy camouflage and overpowering them, utilizing their formidable power and weight to knock bigger animals off steadiness. A bunch of tigers, and even only a momma together with her cubs, is known as an ambush.
Tigers like areas with dense cowl, corresponding to forests with entry to water and loads of prey. On our Nat Hab Grand India Wildlife Journey, we journey by 4×4 by way of Bengal tiger habitat. A necessary cease is Bandhavgarh Nationwide Park, which is famend for having one of many nation’s highest concentrations of Bengal tigers. Initially established as a nationwide park in 1968, Bandhavgarh was declared a protected tiger reserve in 1993. At solely 444 sq. miles, it’s a comparatively small park and presents vacationers a fairly strong probability of encountering Bengal tigers.
In the meantime, on our India Tiger Safari, we go to Tadoba Nationwide Park in Maharashtra—legendary tiger nation. Throughout this strategically timed early summer season journey, guests are fewer and tigers much less elusive, as they enterprise out of the dry underbrush a number of occasions every day to quench their thirst at waterholes.
2. Nepal
Conservation journey is integral to defending wildlife, and our Nat Hab journeys immediately profit the continued existence of the magnificent tigers. On our Wild & Historical Himalaya Journey by way of Nepal and Bhutan, we once more have the chance to attempt to spot the Bengal tiger.
Chitwan Nationwide Park in Nepal was established in 1973 as Nepal’s first nationwide park, and it was named a World Heritage Web site by UNESCO in 1984. It covers 360 sq. miles of subtropical lowlands the place, circumstances allowing, we are able to observe tigers with our Expedition Chief and an area information. Though there’s a a lot smaller inhabitants of Bengal tigers right here than in India, the most recent census suggests there are round 130 tigers who at present name the park dwelling.
And whereas we gained’t see tigers on the Bhutan portion of the journey, we do go to Taktsang Monastery, also called the “Tiger’s Nest,” a fancy of Seventeenth-century temples that adheres to the facet of a sheer cliff that rises almost 3,000 toes above the valley ground. The monastery’s title comes from the story of Guru Rinpoche, the mystic who introduced Buddhism from India to Bhutan within the eighth century. He reportedly landed right here on the again of a flying tigress and stayed to meditate in a cave for 3 months.
Taktsang Monastery, also called the “Tiger’s Nest,” in Bhutan. © Maynard Davis
3. Indonesia
For these with their sights set on seeing a Sumatran tiger within the wild, Kerinci Seblat Nationwide Park is likely one of the greatest locations on the planet to take action. It spans the coastal plains of West Sumatra in Indonesia and covers an space twice the scale of Bali. The Sumatran tiger inhabitants right here numbers round 200 cats.
4. Russia
If Siberian (or Amur) tigers seize your curiosity, Zov Tigra Nationwide Park (that means “roar of the tiger”) within the Russian Far East was the primary nationwide park created with the categorical intention of defending this tiger species. Solely about 10 tigers reside within the protected house, which covers a complete of 200 hectares.
Tiger Tourism for Conservation—Not Exploitation
There are at all times various viewpoints concerning the ethics surrounding wildlife tourism. Relying on how it’s managed, it will possibly both exploit wildlife or be a viable avenue for elevating consciousness, defending fragile populations and rehabilitating species. As Journey Operators for Tigers states very clearly, “Effectively-conceived, well-planned and well-managed tourism is a essential software in wildlife conservation, rural and group improvement and sustainable livelihoods.”
© Harry Bosen
However how can a traveler who desires to see tigers within the wild know tips on how to spot “well-managed” tourism?
To begin with, by no means take part in a tour that enables guests to work together with the tigers bodily. There are quite a lot of disreputable locations across the globe that regularly breed captive tigers to provide cubs which are then snatched away from their moms at only a couple days previous and bottle fed to coach them to ‘socialize’ with individuals. Then they’re exploited in what are known as ‘pay-to-play’ schemes, the place vacationers are charged a payment to take their image with a tiger or feed a child cub.
As a result of cubs rapidly grow to be too massive and harmful for the general public to have direct contact with, what was as soon as a profitable money-making child rapidly morphs into an enormous legal responsibility. At round 12 weeks previous, the cats are normally both given away to unqualified individuals or roadside zoos, euthanized and tossed, or killed to promote their elements.
For conservation tourism to work, it have to be carried out in a manner that minimizes harm to habitats, prevents pointless stress on the animals and generates concrete advantages to each conservation applications and close by communities. We rigorously adhere to those rules on all of our Nat Hab wildlife journeys (together with our tiger adventures in India and Nepal & Bhutan), so that you might be safe within the data that your tiger journey helps defend these phenomenal felines!
