TIGERS
More than a decade ago, tiger range countries committed to doubling the big cat’s numbers by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger. As a result, tiger populations are now increasing in Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Russia.
In July 2022, Nepal announced that it had doubled—and nearly tripled—its wild tiger population. WWF was a part of the survey activities that revealed an increase in wild tiger numbers from an estimated 121 in 2010 to 355 in 2022—a testament to strategic, holistic conservation work that has included partnerships with communities, political will, wildlife corridor restoration, habitat protection and expansion, and wildlife crime prevention. Nepal’s projects to tackle poaching protect other species, too. In fact, thanks to protected area patrols and community-based antipoaching units, Nepal has enjoyed zero rhino poaching since 2011.
In July 2022, the IUCN Red List estimated that global wild tiger numbers had reached a new high of around 4,500 tigers in the wild. However, a new global estimate is expected in late 2023, following the continued announcements from tiger range countries like Bhutan and India, as well as others, in sharing their latest national tiger numbers.
RHINOS
International poaching and trafficking jeopardize the survival of species such as rhinos, tigers, and elephants. With your help, we are turning the tide and making crucial progress toward our three key objectives: stop the poaching, stop the trafficking, and stop the buying.
Since 2016, an innovative partnership between WWF and Teledyne FLIR (FLIR), a producer of thermal cameras, has enabled rangers in parks and reserves in Kenya and Zambia to see poacher activity at night, identify areas of highest risk, and operate with greater effectiveness. In 2022, WWF launched the final stages of the Kifaru Rising program in Kenya, which aims to eliminate rhino poaching in 11 high-priority wildlife reserves.
At Kenya’s Solio Game Reserve, WWF staff and partners from the Kenya Wildlife Service designed a thermal camera-based security system capable of detecting nighttime incursions around the park’s perimeter. Home to more rhinos than perhaps anywhere else in Kenya, this private reserve played a key part in recovering the country’s critically endangered black rhino population. Since installing similar security systems in Kenya’s Lake Nakuru National Park and Ol Pejeta Conservancy, WWF has seen rhino poaching in these areas plummet to zero. Solio is the third site slated to receive this treatment, with system construction planned for this year.
POLAR BEARS
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most important protected areas in the Arctic. Among its valuable ecological features is the largest concentration of onshore denning habitat for polar bears in the US, and nesting habitat for birds flying in from every continent. WWF and our supporters are taking action to protect the Arctic Refuge permanently from the risks of oil and gas development.
Over the last year, WWF provided extensive scientific expertise on the draft and final environmental impact statements for the oil and gas leasing program initiated under the Trump administration, as well as comments on the grave risks seismic testing poses to the high concentration of south Beaufort Sea polar bears denning in the Refuge.
THANK YOU
This progress, which you helped make possible, not only protects these vulnerable species but also supports the people who serve on the ground, who rely on natural resources for economic survival, and who are rallying their communities to protect wildlife and nature. Thank you for helping us protect tigers, elephants, rhinos, polar bears, bison, and many more species around the world.
