Spotlight on Zoo Science
July 20, 2006
Peril and Promise for Wild Tigers
Three National Zoo scientists are among the authors of the most comprehensive scientific study of tiger habitats ever completed. The shocking results of this study showed that the big cats reside in 40 percent less habitat than they were thought to a decade ago. The tigers now occupy only seven percent of their historic range in Asia.
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| Tigers now live in only seven percent of their former range. |
The Zoo’s John Seidensticker (who also serves as the Chair of the Save The Tiger Fund Council), Peter Leimgruber, and Melissa Songer, along with their colleagues at World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Save The Tiger Fund, synthesized land-use information, maps of human influence, and on-the-ground evidence of tigers to reveal the precipitous decline in the tiger’s range. Although this study did not attempt to estimate the number of tiger alive today, scientists suggest that about 5,000 or fewer remain, down from as many as 100,000 in 1900.
In their report released on July 20, 2006, Setting Priorities for the Conservation and Recovery of Wild Tigers: 2005–2015, they also identified 76 “tiger conservation landscapes,” large areas with core tiger habitats connected by habitat corridors that allow tigers to move between the core areas. These are places that have the best chance of supporting viable tiger populations into the future.
The good news is that half of the 76 landscapes can still support 100 tigers or more, and four strongholds could support more than 500 tigers, providing excellent opportunities for recovery of wild tiger populations. The largest tiger landscapes exist in the Russian Far East and India. Southeast Asia also holds promise to sustain healthy tiger populations although many areas have lost tigers over the last ten years. The four strongholds are the Russian Far East-Northeast China, the Terai Arc Landscape in India/Nepal, the Northern Forest Complex-Namdapha-Royal Manas in Myanmar/India/Bhutan, and the Tenasserims of Thailand/Myanmar.
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Areas in pale yellow show the tiger's historic range. Areas in color are the current range, and areas in red show the 20 most important landscapes for tigers today. To view tiger maps in greater detail, go to  www.tigermaps.org. |
Also good news is the finding that conservation efforts, such as protecting tigers from poaching, preserving prey species, and preserving or restoring tigers’ natural habitat, have resulted in some tiger populations remaining stable and even increasing.
For instance, in the Russian Far East, where poaching had pushed tigers to the brink of extinction ten years ago, there are now about 500 tigers. And tigers are holding their own in the Terai Arc Landscape of India and Nepal, thanks to innovative community conservation efforts to restore habitat. 
See "Building An Arc" in Smithsonian Magazine.
Based on these examples and others, the study concludes that long-term success depends on broad landscape-level conservation vision shared by conservation organizations as well as governments and local communities in the 13 countries where tigers still live.
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| It is important to save tigers in all of the diverse habitats in which they live. |
Because tigers don’t recognize national boundaries, the study further calls for international action to safeguard remaining tiger populations, and the non-governmental organizations whose scientists participated in the study stand ready to support these countries in a regional effort to save the species. A key conclusion is that these efforts must include increased protection of the 20 highest priority tiger conservation landscapes, defined in this study as areas where tigers have the best chance of surviving over the long term. Among these 20 landscapes all of the diverse habitats to which tigers are adapted are represented, from tropical rainforest to mangroves to cold-temperate forests, and thus ensure the survival of “tigerness.”
The overarching goal set out in the report is to create human-tiger friendly landscapes that offer core protected areas surrounded by buffer zones where tigers can raise their young, allow humans and tigers to co-exist, and provide corridors that will connect tigers to other protected core areas.
This landmark study was funded by the Save The Tiger Fund, a partnership between the ExxonMobil Foundation, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and other donors such as the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. Additional funding for this study was provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.N. Foundation.
Dinerstein, E., C. Loucks, A. Heydlauff, E. Wickramanayake, G. Bryja, J. Forrest, J. Ginsberg, S. Klenzendorf, P. Leimgruber, T. O’Brien, E. Sanderson, J. Seidensticker, and M. Songer. 2006. Setting Priorities for the Conservation and Recovery of Wild Tigers: 2005-2015. The report comes in two parts. Part one is A User’s Guide; part two is The Technical Assessment.
