Date:26/09/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/09/26/stories/2005092614000100.htm

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India joins mega cross-border project to save the tiger

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

UNDER THREAT: Between 1994 and 2003, 684 tigers have been recorded killed in India.

NEW DELHI: Anxious to save its tigers and curb trafficking, India has joined seven other countries including the United States, Britain, China and Russia, in an effort to focus world attention on the increasing threat to this apex predator, which environmentalist here fear is facing near extinction due to hunting and trade.

Launching a campaign against tiger trafficking on International Tiger Day on Sunday, the Wildlife Trust of India and its partner, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW-India), came together to "take proactive measures and impress upon all the urgency to protect this animal and promote the need for active enforcement of the law curbing poaching''.

This first-ever mega cross-border project by the non-government sector, of which India is a part, will initiate a campaign to stress the urgent need to stop tiger trafficking and also organise a chain of events in eight countries spread over five days.

This will include unveiling footage and stills that show the increasing use of tiger and leopard skins in traditional costumes in some parts of the world as signs of affluence and the grave danger posed to the animal due to the vast illegal trade.

Going strictly by official statistics available on the animal, three of the nine tiger sub-species have become extinct in the past 40 years. Also, the tiger population has dropped from 100,000 to around 5,000 in two centuries. India is among the 14 Asian countries with tiger populations and one of the two with a population of more than 500 tigers.

Between 1994 and 2003, 684 tigers have been recorded killed in India. And with some buyers willing to pay 10,000 dollars for a tiger pelt in China, the animal is being hunted down to extinction, warn environmentalists.

"The survival of this apex predator is crucial to measure the health of the entire ecosystem. The tiger and the leopard are being hunted mercilessly in India. The past 60 days have seen the seizure of 21 tiger and leopard parts in India and two major seizures in Nepal with links to India. Seizures of tiger and leopard parts are now running almost at the rate of one every alternate day. It has never ever been this bad,'' said the vice-chairman, Wildlife Trust of India, Ashok Kumar.

Observing International Tiger Day and understanding the need for world support to save these animals, IFAW in India, Russia and China have joined forces with Save the Tiger Fund's Campaign Against Tiger Trafficking (CATT) to initiate talks to save the animal.

"An organised crime like poaching and cross-border smuggling in wildlife derivatives requires joint international effort. Together we aim to build, inform and support alliances of conservationists, governments, traditional medicine users and religious groups to stop trade in tiger part,'' said Mr. Kumar.