: Tiger biologists are not fully convinced of the April 10 report of the World Wildlife Forum and the Global Tiger Forum that the world’s wild tiger population is increasing and on track for doubling in a decade.
“We do not find this report and its implications scientifically convincing,” said tiger biologists K. Ullas Karanth, Director, Science Asia, attached to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS); Dale Miquelle, director, WCS Russia Program; John Goodrich, director, Panthera’s tiger programme; and Arjun Gopalaswamy, research associate, Zoology, University of Oxford; in a joint statement.
The statement, mailed to The Hindu, said tiger conservation should be guided by the best possible science.
“Using flawed survey methodologies can lead to incorrect conclusions, an illusion of success, and slackening of conservation efforts, when in reality grave concern is called for. This is not a time for conservationists to take their eyes off the ball and pat each other on the back.”
There is no doubt that wildlife managers in parts of India and even in specific reserves in South East Asia and Russia have made commendable conservation efforts.
Huge investment
India has invested massively in recovering several tiger populations over the last four decades. This has been possible because of strong political, administrative and public support rarely matched anywhere else, the statement said.
“Rigorous scientific studies in India, Thailand and Russia demonstrate that tiger recovery rates are slow and not likely to attain levels necessary for the doubling of wild tiger numbers within a decade.”
Estimates of tiger numbers for large landscapes are largely derived from weak methodologies based on extrapolations from tiger spoor (tracks and droppings) surveys alone.
While spoor surveys can be useful for knowing where tigers occur, they are not useful for reliably counting their numbers.
Translating spoor counts to tiger numbers can lead to fundamentally flawed claims of tiger numbers, they said.
Rather than engaging in these tiger number games that distract them from reality, conservationists must focus on enhancing and expanding recovery and monitoring of source populations, while protecting their remaining habitat and their linkages, all the while being guided by the best of science.
