Tigers

At the advent of the Chinese Year of the Tiger on February 14, 2010, WWF reported that tigers were in crisis around the world. With as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild, it was clear that this would be the vital tipping point for tigers—the year the world either turned the tide on extinction or our backs on this magnificent Asian big cat.

In the past twelve months, WWF used its global network to help combat poaching, protect and connect key tiger landscapes, and build political will.

Success at the Summit

Russian Prime Minister Putin giving a speech at the opening of the summit.
© Zhu Chunquan/WWF

Hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the tiger summit delivered what WWF hoped for — a turning point in global efforts to save one of the world's best-loved species by committing high-level support and funding to the goal of doubling the number of wild tigers by 2022. WWF has worked closely with the Russian government and other tiger range countries, the World Bank, GEF and key partners to make reality an idea that was first floated four years ago by Eric Dinerstein and other tiger champions.

Commitments from the summit include:

• Approximately $127 million in new funding from governments to support tiger conservation
• Endorsement by the 13 countries where tigers live of the Global Tiger Recovery Program  over the next five years

Tigers were the main attraction, but stars gathered to lend their support too, including actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio. The new WWF-US board member premiered a sneak peek of a video from his expedition to Nepal and gave a gift of $1 million to WWF’s Save Tigers Now campaign.

Action on the Ground

WWF is the only conservation organization active in almost all the tiger range countries. During the Year of the Tiger we continued to work closely with tiger range countries on their recovery plans, strengthened anti-poaching work and supported grassroots projects.

Protecting Tigers and Tiger Lands

WWF facilitated an agreement between China and Russia that led to the first transboundary Amur tiger protected area between the two countries. We successfully lobbied with the Russian government to ban Korean pine logging in key Amur tiger habitat and helped reverse a decision to auction logging rights in prime tiger habitat.

Vladimir Alekseevich Schibnev, head of the Bikin anti-poaching group, stands over a stump of a 200-year old Korean pine tree, Primorsky province, Russia.
© Vladimir Filonov / WWF-Canon

This year, India announced its 39^th tiger reserve, with another eight new reserves in development, and Cambodia formally designated Selma Forest a protected area, creating a new and vital protected area as part of the Eastern Plains Tiger Landscape Protected Area Complex.

WWF was part of other important field successes too. A tiger we helped collar and translocate to India’s Panna Tiger Reserve made conservation history when she gave birth to a trio of cubs. We also aided Nepal to collar and translocate their first wild tiger. We gave tiger conservation new allies—highly trained sniffer dogs from the US to track tiger scat which WWF scientists sent off for lab analysis to identify genetic diversity, eating habits, and population numbers.

WWF raised the alarm with shocking video of a bulldozer destroying forests in Sumatra, linking the destruction of a crucial Sumatran tiger forest to the expansion of illegal palm oil plantations in Indonesia’s Riau Province, and a new investigation that found companies connected to the Sinar Mas Group’a Asia Pulp & Paper obtained government licenses reclassifying some of Sumatra’s last tiger forests as industrial timber plantations.

In January 2011, WWF was part of an important new study that found doubling tiger numbers is not only possible, but can be exceeded if Asian tiger reserves are managed as large-scale landscapes. We also worked with more than 20 leading global companies from across WWF’s Global Forest & Trade Network to lead the industry in actions that leave trees standing and safeguard wild tiger landscapes.

Stopping  Tiger Trade

A two-month-old tiger cub was found sedated and hidden among stuffed-tiger toys in the luggage of a woman at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport.
© Wildlife Checkpoint Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand

In the field, increased anti-poaching efforts resulted in successful seizures and arrests including Chinese poachers nabbed in Russia with three dead tigers in April, Vietnam’s Environmental Police confiscation of two frozen tigers, a frozen leopard and over 10 pounds of suspected tiger bones from the house of a single suspect, and a sedated tiger cub found hidden among stuffed-tiger toys in a woman’s luggage at Bangkok’s airport.  

Law enforcement also received a boost through the newly established South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network that which increase anti-poaching and wildlife trade law enforcement efforts in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal.

Reports released in the past year revealed that more than 1,000 tigers have been reduced to skin and bones in the last decade alone by poachers. TRAFFIC’s study showed an average of 104 to 119 poached tigers were seized per year—the tip of a vast illegal trade that crisscrosses international borders. “The Big Cat Trade in Myanmar and Thailand” report and documentary from TRAFFIC and WWF exposed the easy availability of endangered Asian big cats in black markets along Myanmar, Thailand and China’s shared borders. The report said high profit margins, corrupt authorities and little fear of recrimination had allowed wildlife trafficking to flourish.

Tiger Champions

Here in the U.S., celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Suplee, and Dick Van Dyke all came together to support a single cause—saving tigers. They lent their voices and reputation to raise awareness and much-needed funds that would go to tiger conservation. Other tiger heroes were in the limelight too. Anatoly Belov, a veteran anti-poaching ranger from Russia working on the frontlines to protect tigers, received the prestigious 2010 WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal.

Tigers Among Us

The United States has one of the largest populations of captive tigers in the world—potentially as many as 5,000 cats. WWF and TRAFFIC called for a centralized federal database to monitor these captive tigers because weak regulations here could be fueling the illegal tiger market internationally. With your support, we urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Agriculture to close the loopholes for tiger ownership. WWF advanced international tiger advocacy within the U.S. government when Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Congresswoman Madeline Bordallo (D-GU) introduced resolutions supporting the global tiger summit in Russia.

Moving Forward for Tigers

Thanks to these actions and more, the Year of the Tiger ended on a note of optimism that heralds the hope for new beginnings: for tigers, for nature and for conservation’s next 50 years.