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The Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety (WCS) announced today sig­nif­i­cant progress for tigers in three key land­scapes across the big cat’s range due to bet­ter law enforce­ment, pro­tec­tion of addi­tional habi­tat, and strong gov­ern­ment partnerships.

The suc­cesses are much-​needed good news as tiger num­bers world­wide con­tinue to hover at all-​time lows due to the com­bined threat of poach­ing, loss of prey, and habi­tat destruc­tion. WCS esti­mates that only 3,200 tigers exist in the wild.

WCS sci­en­tist Ullas Karanth »

The news begins in south­west­ern India where WCS research and con­ser­va­tion efforts that began 25 years ago now show a major rebound of tigers in the West­ern Ghats region of Kar­nataka State. Over 600 indi­vid­u­als have been iden­ti­fied to date from cam­era trap pho­tos dur­ing the last decade in this moun­tain­ous land­scape. In Nagara­hole and Bandipur National Parks, tigers have actu­ally reached sat­u­ra­tion lev­els, with sur­plus young tigers spilling out into forest-​reserves and dis­pers­ing using secured for­est cor­ri­dors through a land­scape that holds over a mil­lion human beings. The com­bi­na­tion of strict government-​led anti-​poaching patrols, vol­un­tary relo­ca­tion of vil­lages away from tiger habi­tats, and the vig­i­lant local pres­ence of WCS con­ser­va­tion part­ners watch­ing over tigers has led to the rebound of big-​cat pop­u­la­tions and their prey. In newer tiger reserves includ­ing Bhadra and Kudremukh, num­bers have increased by as much as 50 per­cent after years of neglect and chronic poach­ing were tack­led.

In Thai­land, WCS con­ser­va­tion­ists report a tiger come­back in Huai Kha Khaeng (HKK) Wildlife Sanc­tu­ary — a 2,700 square kilo­me­tre (1,042 square mile) pro­tected area in the vast West­ern For­est Com­plex. WCS has worked closely with Thai author­i­ties to beef up enforce­ment and anti-​poaching patrols in the region. Last year, a noto­ri­ous poach­ing ring was busted, and this year the gang lead­ers were given prison sen­tences of up to five years — the most severe pun­ish­ments for wildlife poach­ing in Thailand’s his­tory. Since their cap­ture, there have been no known tiger or ele­phant poach­ing inci­dents in the park. Tiger num­bers have been ris­ing steadily in the park since 2007, with a record 50-​plus tigers counted last year.

Mean­while in Rus­sia, gov­ern­ment offi­cials are draft­ing a new law that will make trans­port, sales, and pos­ses­sion of endan­gered ani­mals a crim­i­nal offense rather than just a civil crime. This will close a loop­hole that cur­rently allows poach­ers to claim they found endan­gered species like tigers already dead and thus avoid stiffer crim­i­nal penal­ties for poach­ing.
Rus­sia is mak­ing progress in cre­at­ing addi­tional pro­tected areas for tigers, too, declar­ing a new cor­ri­dor called Cen­tral Ussuri Wildlife Refuge on Octo­ber 18. The new refuge acts as a link­age between the Sikhote-​Alin tiger pop­u­la­tion in Rus­sia, which is the main pop­u­la­tion of Amur tigers, and some of the best tiger habi­tat in China’s Hei­longjiang Province in the Wan­dashan Moun­tains. The cre­ation of the new refuge ensures that tigers have the capac­ity to move across the inter­na­tional bor­der between Russ­ian and China in this region. WCS first iden­ti­fied this key cor­ri­dor in 1999 after con­duct­ing joint wildlife sur­veys with Chi­nese and Russ­ian sci­en­tists there.