Tigers in wild face risk of extinction
BEIJING. January 19. KAZINFORM Wild tigers in the country face the danger of extinction in about three decades if loss of habitats and illegal trade continue, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has warned; Kazinform refers to China Daily.
"If urgent and proper measures are not taken, there is a risk that wild tigers will no longer be found on Chinese territory," Zhu Chunquan, conservation director of biodiversity of WWF China Program Office, told China Daily yesterday.
The warning came as the country marks the Year of the Tiger next month. The animal tops WWF's list of "10 to Watch in 2010", followed by polar bears, pandas and rhinos.
The tiger is believed to be native to China, which evolved into eight subspecies.
But the country now has only about 50 wild tigers - in four subspecies - Wang Weisheng, director of the wildlife management division of China's State Forestry Administration (SFA), told China Daily.
South China tigers are believed to be extinct in the wild after the species has not been sighted for more than 25 years, according to WWF.
The country is left with 20 Siberian tigers, 10 to 20 Bengal tigers and 10 Indochinese tigers, Wang with the SFA added.
The number is a sharp decline from only half a century ago. The South China tiger numbered about 4,000 in the 1950s and there were 200 Siberian tigers in the 1960s.
The plight of wild tigers in the country mirrors the situation in the rest of the world as new studies indicate that there may be as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild, according to WWF.
Tigers occupy less than 7 percent of their original habitat, which has decreased by 40 percent over the past decade, WWF said.
As an umbrella species in the ecosystem, the tiger is crucial because it controls the population of herbivores and preserves the balance of forests and grasslands, Zhu said.
"The tiger is the top predator in the food chain," he said. "If you protect the tiger, you protect all others in the system."
The loss of habitats and rampant poaching of tigers and their prey - mostly for illegal trade of traditional Chinese medicine - have contributed to the drastic decline of the wild tiger population in the country, said Zhu with WWF.
China has banned trade in all tiger derivatives since 1993, and has faced pressure from neighboring countries to not lift the ban because of entreaties from tiger farms; Kazinform cites China Daily.
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