logo

Welcome


AboutZoos, Since 2008





201709Sep18:16

Wild tigers to return to Kaza­khstan 70 years after going extinct

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 09 Sep­tem­ber 2017 | mod­i­fied 09 Sep­tem­ber 2017
Archived

The Repub­lic of Kaza­khstan on 8 Sep­tem­ber announced plans to bring wild tigers back to their his­tor­i­cal range in the Ili-​Balkhash region, and signed a mem­o­ran­dum with WWF to jointly imple­ment a tiger rein­tro­duc­tion programme.

Caspian tigerCaspian tiger (Pan­thera tigris vir­gata), declared extinct in the 1970s.
© WWF России, © WWF Russia

Kaza­khstan is mov­ing along the path of green devel­op­ment. We are hon­oured to be the first coun­try in Cen­tral Asia to imple­ment such an impor­tant and large-​scale project, that not only will bring wild tigers back to their ances­tral home, but also pro­tect the unique ecosys­tem of the Ili-​Balkhash region,” said Askar Myrza­khme­tov, the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture of the Repub­lic of Kazakhstan.

The sign­ing cer­e­mony took place in the pavil­ion of the King­dom of the Nether­lands Embassy in Kaza­khstan within the frame­work of EXPO-​2017, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture of the Repub­lic of Kaza­khstan Askar Myrza­khme­tov, WWF Inter­na­tional Direc­tor Gen­eral Marco Lam­ber­tini and WWF-​Russia Direc­tor Igor Chestin.

I am proud to wit­ness the sign­ing of the mem­o­ran­dum between the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture of the Repub­lic of Kaza­khstan and WWF here in the Pavil­ion of the Nether­lands at EXPO 2017. The Nether­lands was one of the first sup­port­ers and spon­sors of this bold and inno­v­a­tive project, and we are excited to be part of this key mile­stone today,” said Dirk Jan Kop, Ambas­sador of the King­dom of the Nether­lands in the Repub­lic of Kaza­khstan, in open­ing the sign­ing ceremony.

Kazakhstan’s tiger pro­gramme will con­tribute to Tx2the global goal to dou­ble the num­ber of wild tigers by 2022, a com­mit­ment made by tiger-​range gov­ern­ments at the St Peters­burg Tiger Sum­mit in 2010.

It was first in 2011 that WWF together with Kazakhstan’s gov­ern­ment and spe­cial­ists began to develop a pro­gramme for Caspian tiger (Pan­thera tigris vir­gata) rein­tro­duc­tion to the region of Cen­tral Asia. The results of the fea­si­bil­ity study on the pos­si­bil­ity of tiger’s pop­u­la­tion restora­tion in that area were first pub­lished by WWF Rus­sia in the spring of 2011. The study showed that there is a ter­ri­tory of about 500,000 hectares in the flood­plain of the Ili river, south of the Balkhash lake, that is well suited for tigers. Amur tiger 0riginal WWFMore­over, the study of British sci­en­tists showed that the extinct Caspian tiger was genet­i­cally almost iden­ti­cal to the Amur tiger from the Russ­ian Far East. This allows the rein­tro­duc­tion pro­gramme to use these Russ­ian Far East sub­species for restora­tion of a tiger pop­u­la­tion. A recent study, pub­lished in Jan­u­ary 2017 in the jour­nal Bio­log­i­cal Con­ser­va­tion, by WWF and the Uni­ver­sity of New York showed how long it will take to restore the num­ber of prey species as well as the pos­si­ble term for the release of the first tigers, based on a math­e­mat­i­cal model that has been developed.

If suc­cess­ful, Kaza­khstan will be the first coun­try in the world to bring wild tigers back to an entire region where they have gone extinct for nearly half a cen­tury. Tiger relo­ca­tion projects have only been achieved within national bor­ders and in areas that are con­sid­ered cur­rent tiger habi­tats. Kazakhstan’s tiger rein­tro­duc­tion pro­gramme is unique and unprece­dented and it requires the restora­tion of a vast ripar­ian for­est that is part of the wild tiger’s his­tor­i­cal range.

We applaud the Repub­lic of Kaza­khstan for the vision and lead­er­ship shown in embark­ing on a most ambi­tious and excit­ing con­ser­va­tion chal­lenge to bring back this majes­tic preda­tor to the coun­try. This is a major con­tri­bu­tion to secur­ing a future for tigers in the wild and also a crit­i­cal step toward pro­tect­ing the Ili-​Balkhash region for its unique bio­di­ver­sity and impor­tant nat­ural sys­tems that peo­ple rely on,” said Marco Lam­ber­tini, Direc­tor Gen­eral of WWF International.

To pre­pare for the return of wild tigers, on 1st Jan­u­ary 2018 the Gov­ern­ment of Kaza­khstan will estab­lish a new nature reserve in the south-​western Ili-​Balkhash, in order to restore the unique ripar­ian for­est habi­tat that is adja­cent to Lake Balkhash. This will include the pro­tec­tion of exist­ing wildlife, and rein­tro­duc­ing impor­tant prey species, such as the endan­gered kulan (wild don­key) and Bac­trian deer that are native to Cen­tral Asia, but now extinct in Kaza­khstan due to poach­ing and habi­tat loss.

Caspian tiger map reintro programMap of Caspian tiger rein­tro­duc­tion pro­gramme.
© WWF России, © WWF Russia

Restor­ing tigers will also help pro­tect Lake Balkhash — one of Asia’s largest lakes and an impor­tant source of water in the Ili River basin — and pre­vent it from repeat­ing the fate of the Aral Sea, for­merly the world’s fourth largest lake and now 10 per cent of its orig­i­nal size.

Thanks to years of close col­lab­o­ra­tion between Kaza­khstan and Russ­ian con­ser­va­tion experts, we have now iden­ti­fied the best pos­si­ble ter­ri­tory in Ili-​Balkhash for the restora­tion of a thriv­ing wild tiger pop­u­la­tion. Our con­tin­ued coop­er­a­tion will be key in the suc­cess­ful cre­ation of a new reserve, the restora­tion of rare native species and, in a few years’ time, achiev­ing an unprece­dented trans­bound­ary relo­ca­tion of wild tigers to Cen­tral Asia.

Igor Chestin, Direc­tor of WWF-​Russia.

Since the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tury, wild tigers have lost over 90 per cent of their his­tor­i­cal range, which included Cen­tral Asia (mod­ern Turkey and Iran to north-​western China). Wild tigers have com­pletely dis­ap­peared from the region since the late 1940s, due to poach­ing, and the loss of key flood­plain and coastal habitats.

The hard work remains ahead of us. We have to up our efforts to make this region ready for tigers and involve all stake­hold­ers to make this hap­pen. That means tack­ling poach­ing and ille­gal activ­i­ties, hav­ing well-​trained and equipped rangers, thriv­ing prey pop­u­la­tions and engaged local com­mu­ni­ties,” said Eka­te­rina Vorobyeva, Direc­tor of WWF-​Russia Cen­tral Asia programme.

Caspian tiger con­ser­va­tion
Caspian (Turan­ian) tiger (Pan­thera tigris vir­gata) is an extinct sub­species of tiger that inhab­ited a huge ter­ri­tory from Turkey to West­ern China, includ­ing the Cau­ca­sus, Iran and Cen­tral Asia. Gen­eral size of its habi­tat was more than 2 mil­lion km2. Caspian tigers lived in the flood­plains of the tugai forests and reeds thick­ets along nat­ural water basins like creeks or rivers. As judged by the indi­rect data, their den­sity reached about 23 ani­mals on 100 km2, which is com­pa­ra­ble with India and a lot higher than in the Russ­ian Far East.
Prime rea­sons for Caspian tiger’s extinc­tion were degra­da­tion of the flood­plain and coastal ecosys­tems due to agri­cul­ture devel­op­ment, as well as a direct exter­mi­na­tion of the tigers being regarded a harm­ful preda­tor. The Caspian tigers went extinct in the 1950s in Kaza­khstan and in the 1970s in the rest of the world.

(Source: WWF global press release, 08.09.2017)


UN Biodiversity decade
WWF Stop Wildlife Crime
Fight for Flight campaign
End Ivory-funded Terrorism
Support Rewilding Europe
NASA State of Flux

Goal: 7000 tigers in the wild

Tiger range countries map

Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

about zoos and their mis­sion regard­ing breed­ing endan­gered species, nature con­ser­va­tion, bio­di­ver­sity and edu­ca­tion, which of course relates to the evo­lu­tion of species.
Fol­low me on: