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Tigers nearing extinction

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Guy Legend

Guy Legend

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siberian-tiger-grooming.jpg


Tiger Summit aims to save big cats

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – Global wildlife experts and political leaders from 13 countries on Sunday open a meeting aimed at finalizing complex and costly plans to revive the world's tiger population, which has plummeted so sharply that it may be near the point of no return.

Although the fierce and wily tigers may be the epitome of power in their natural habitat, they have seemed nearly helpless against man. The World Wildlife Fund and other experts say only about 3,200 of the big cats remain in the wild, a severe plunge from an estimated 100,000 a century ago.

Their forest habitat is being eaten up by timber operations and construction, while poachers stalk the dwindling tiger populations, killing them for their skins and for body parts prized in Chinese traditional medicine. The wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC said in a report this month that more than 1,000 parts of tigers slain by poachers across Asia had been seized in the past decade.

"The Tiger Summit is our last best chance to ensure a future for these animals in the wild," Ginette Hemley, a WWF vice president, said in a statement Thursday.

The summit, which ends Wednesday, is hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has adroitly used encounters with tigers, polar bears and other wildlife to bolster his image, and was driven by the Global Tiger Initiative which was launched two years ago by World Bank President Robert Zoellick.

The summit intends to approve a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 and to produce a declaration of commitment signed by government leaders from al countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia.

The summit also will be seeking donor commitments to buttress expenditures by each of the country's governments. A draft of the Global Tiger Recovery Program, expected to be approved at the meeting, estimates the countries will need $330 million in outside funding over the next five years to fulfill the plan. About 30 percent of that estimate would go toward programs to suppress the poaching both of tigers and of the animals they prey on.

For advocates, saving tigers has implications far beyond the emotional appeal of preserving an attractive and thrilling animal.

"Because tigers are apex predators at the top of the food chain in many Asian ecosystems, they are essential to the effective functioning of other parts of these ecosystems," the GTRP draft says. "Protecting tigers and their landscapes also protects a host of other endangered species and their habitats."

Over the past two decades, much has already been done to try to save tigers, but conservation groups say their numbers have continued to fall markedly, by about a third just since 1998.

In part, that decline is because conservation effors have been increasingly diverse and often aimed at improving habitats outside protected areas where tigers can breed, according to a study published in September in the Popular Library of Science Biology journal.

Putin has done much to draw attention to tigers' plight. During a visit to a wildlife preserve in 2008, he shot a female tiger with a tranquilizer gun and helped place a transmitter around her neck as part of a program to track the rare cats.

Later in the year, Putin was given a 2-month-old female Siberian tiger for his birthday. State television showed him at his home gently petting the cub, which was curled up in a wicker basket with a tiger-print cushion. The tiger now lives in a zoo in southern Russia.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_saving_tigers
 
L

lightless_shado

Banned
I'm certain that there are some groups out there who've had the foresight to gather the DNA of the animals so they can be cloned in the future after cloning technology has become sophisticated enough.
 
S

Shanadeus

Banned
Their forest habitat is being eaten up by timber operations and construction, while poachers stalk the dwindling tiger populations, killing them for their skins and for body parts prized in Chinese traditional medicine. The wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC said in a report this month that more than 1,000 parts of tigers slain by poachers across Asia had been seized in the past decade.
Click to expand...

I hate Chinese traditional medicine.
And timber operations and poachers.

These majestic beasts deserve better.
 
M

Magni

Member
Tigers (Siberian tigers to be precise, though Bengals are great as well) are my favorite animals. Fuck the humans who are responsible for their dwindling number.. =(
 
S

Souldriver

Member
lightless_shado said:
I'm certain that there are some groups out there who've had the foresight to gather the DNA of the animals so they can be cloned in the future after cloning technology has become sophisticated enough.
Click to expand...
Well then, no need to stop slaughtering them.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
Damn Chinese traditional medicine. It's not just tigers, they still go for rhino horns too.
They need to get some influential Chinese doctors to speak about the uselessness of those concoctions.
That earth opening scene in Avatar may not have been far off the mark :(
 
V

V_Ben

Banned
Man, humanity really sucks sometimes. It's f*cking tragic that people on this earth are killing these beautiful animals for such pathetic reasons.
 
D

daw840

Member
Wow, I'm not usually one to care much about issues like this that I have 0 control or say over, but this does kind of piss me off. I like tigers.... :(
 
S

SoulPlaya

more money than God
lightless_shado said:
I'm certain that there are some groups out there who've had the foresight to gather the DNA of the animals so they can be cloned in the future after cloning technology has become sophisticated enough.
Click to expand...
:l
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The country in which most tigers live don't give a shit about them. I don't think there's anything we can even do about it.
 
R

Rorschach

Member
DonMigs85 said:
Just think, there are over 5 times more people at your average WWE event than there are tigers in the wild.
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Holy shit. That really puts things in perspective. I had no idea people still went to see WWE matches.
 
Eteric Rice

Eteric Rice

Member
lightless_shado said:
I'm certain that there are some groups out there who've had the foresight to gather the DNA of the animals so they can be cloned in the future after cloning technology has become sophisticated enough.
Click to expand...

This is what I was thinking. We should really be doing this to undo extinction.
 
C

crazy monkey

Banned
blaming Chinese is good and all if you want to but they are not the prime reason why the population is the way it is. There was huge amount of poching done by British in India.
 
Guy Legend

Guy Legend

Member
crazy monkey said:
blaming Chinese is good and all if you want to but they are not the prime reason why the population is the way it is. There was huge amount of poching done by British in India.
Click to expand...

The British days led the population to become endangered, but if they go extinct its because of demand for animal parts from places today - primarily China.

India's government has tried to save Tigers, but you can't completely stop it when the demand continues to be high.

I hope there are more extreme measures taken to save them that come out of this conference. It's almost too late.
 
S

shuri

Banned
Why can we clone useless shit like sheeps and dogs (i love dogs, but they aren not extincts), why cant we clone tigers?
 
Guy Legend

Guy Legend

Member
shuri said:
Why can we clone useless shit like sheeps and dogs (i love dogs, but they aren not extincts), why cant we clone tigers?
Click to expand...

We could, but how do you raise them in the wild. There are more tigers alive in zoos than in the wild...but of course that isn't the same.
 
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