Story at a glance…
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The tiger home countries have been trying to double wild tiger numbers over the last ten years.
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While they won’t likely make the goal of 6,000 tigers by 2022, most of the countries have increased wild tiger numbers.
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A new report from the IUCN’s integrated Tiger Habitat Program shows population increases and how many different ways there are to protect big cats.
A new report from one of the major players in tiger conservation shows increases in tiger numbers across Myanmar, central and southern India, and Nepal as high as 92% in some places, and 40% on average.
The report has been published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) six months before the Chinese lunar calendar will usher in the Year of the Tiger, upon which a bold conservation strategy initiated in the early 2010s will arrive at its deadline.
The goal was given the acronym “TX2,” or “tigers times-two,” and was a cooperation between the 13 tiger range countries to try and double the number of wild tigers over ten years. The last rigorous scientific surveys showed the population increasing from about 3,200 to 3,900 between 2010 and 2016. with limited surveying in some countries potentially putting that at a hundred less or a hundred more.
The new report spans 2016 to present day, and looks at how different strategies impacted tiger conservation across a number of linked sites known as the Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Program (ITHCP). These include some iconic subcontinental wilderness areas such as the Sundarbans, Manas Tiger Reserve, the Western Ghats, and Terai, as well as a smattering of sites across Southeast Asia, and Sumatra.
The bottom line is that these five years represent a huge success for conservation strategies in the ITHCP, with tiger numbers doubling in some locations. Habitat restoration has also been extensive, with an area twice the size of Yellowstone Park being returned to tiger habitat through native tree planting strategies.