Overview
"Great and terrible flesh-eating beasts have always shared landscape with humans...They were part of the psychological context in which our sense of identity as a species rose."
-David Quammen, Monster of God
The tiger (Panthera tigris Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the fiercest and largest cat species on planet earth! However, when these cats are not hungry, they could be friendly. There are only as few as 3,200 tigers in the wild today and many subspecies are on the brink of extinction. World Wildlife Foundation states that in just 100 years, the global tiger population has decreased by 97%! (WWF, 2013). The tiger was declared endangered in 1969 by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (Seidensticker 2010). If we don't speed up the conservation process, in the next few decades we may never see these beautiful cats again.
The main causes of tiger habitat degradation are human population growth, rapid urbanization, infrastructure development, and climate change. In 2008, almost 3.4 billion people lived in tiger's geographical territory in Asia alone, which was four times the number than 40 years ago. Tigers currently only live in 13 countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Many tiger subspecies including Bali tiger, Caspian tiger, Javan tiger, and South China tiger are extinct (Seidensticker 2010).
Scientists estimate there is about 1 million square kilometer or 76 units of Tiger Conservation Landscape (TCLs) of potential tiger habitat left in 2006. A TCL is defined as a habitat enough to support at least five tigers and where tigers have been sighted in the last 10 years. About half of the TCLs left can support up to 100 tigers or more, and 7 can support up to 500 tigers or more. In 2006, about 33% of TCLs have lost all of their tigers. According to a study done in 2010, there were 36 TCLs with known tiger breeding tiger population, sufficient prey, enough habitat, low threat levels, and high conservation effectiveness. Sanderson et al. consulted tiger range country experts in 2004 to 2006 and found that there may no longer be any ecologically functioning tiger populations. No ecological function means the size of the population is too small to play any significant role in the ecosystem function (Seidensticker 2010).
Physical Characteristics, Ranges, and Population Sizes
Mature tigers' body length could vary from 4-10 feet depending on the species and weigh ranging from 220-660 pounds. Their habitats include tropical forests, evergreen forests, mangrove swamps, grasslands, savannas, and temperate forests. It usually takes about 3-4 years for female tigers to become sexually mature and 4-5 years for males. On average, tigers give birth to 2-3 cubs every 2-2.5 years. Tigers are solitary animals and require large coherent territories. The major threats to their livelihood include poaching, retaliatory killings and habitat loss (WWF, 2013).Main tiger subspecies still left in the world include (some are extinct in the wild):
Amur Tiger (Siberian Tiger)
Panthera tigris altaica
The world population of Amur tiger is around 400. When mature, their weights range from 396-600 pounds and body length up to 10 feet. Their primary habitat is temperate forest. They once roamed Russian Far East, northern China, and Korea, they were almost hunted to extinction by the 1940s; their number decreased to about 40. Thankfully, Russia's protection measures proved effective and by the 1980's, Amur tiger population rose back up 500 individuals. However, recent events of illegal logging in Russian East is once again putting Amur tiger population on the brink of extinction. Illegal logging is a major problem because the animals that Amur tigers prey on depend on the nuts and acorns from these trees. Without prey, Amur tigers will die from starvation (WWF, 2013).
Bengal Tiger
Panthera tigris tigris
The population of Bengal tiger is fewer than 2,500 around the world and about 2000 are currently living in the Indian subcontinent (Seidensticker 2010). Mature Bengal tigers can weigh up to 550 pounds and reach 10 feet in length. The major habitats of these beautiful cats are deciduous forest, grasslands, temperate forests, and mangrove forests. Bengal tigers are found mainly in India and some places in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Myanmar. The major threats to Bengal tiger survival are poaching for trade and the destruction of mangroves, where most of these tigers live (WWF, 2013).
Indochinese Tiger
Panthera tigris corbetti
That are an estimated of 350 Indochinese Tigers left in the world. When mature, Indochinese tigers can weigh up to 550 pounds and grow up to 9 feet in length. These cats live in tropical, subtropical, and dry forests. About 250 still live on the Thailand-Myanmar border. Indochinese tiger population has decreased due to habitat fragmentation from road construction and construction of a dam on Mae Wong River. Also, poaching and loss of prey are both significant factors that contributed to their decline. WWF has planned to reintroduce these tigers into the forests of the Lower Mekong (WWF, 2013).
Malayan Tiger
Panthera tigris jacksoni
These cats are believed to be extinct in the wild. They once roamed the Southeast China-Hainan moist forests. In the 1950s, there were 4,000 left in the wild, but due to hunting the next few decades, their population was almost decimated. The Chinese government banned tiger hunting 1979, but it was not enough to save the Malayan tiger population. In 1996, there were still 30-80 left, but today they are believed to be extinct in the wild. Even if they are reintroduced to the wild, there are not enough healthy habitats to support them (WWF, 2013). This is definitely one of the most tragic stories. Intensive conservation for other tiger subspecies must happen quickly to prevent future extinctions.
South China Tiger
What a tragedy! Like the Malayan tiger, South China Tiger is also extinct in the wild. They once lived in the Southeast China Hainan Moist Forests. In the early 1950s, there were still around 4,000 left in the wild, but eventually they were hunted to extinction. Even though hunting was banned in 1979, only 30-80 were left in 1996. Today, they have not been seen in the wild. Scientists have plans to reintroduce captive-bred tigers into South Africa but the habitats in China are highly fragmented and not able to sustain tiger population (WWF, 2013).
Sumatran Tiger
There were around 1,000 wild Sumatran tigers left in the world by 1978, and there are fewer than 400 on Sumatra today. Deforestation and poaching are the main causes for their decrease. Their habitats include tropical broadleaf evergreen, forest, peat swamps, and freshwater swamp forests. They are only found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. When mature, Sumatran tigers only weigh up to 165-308 pounds, making them the smallest tiger subspecies in the world. Even though the Indonesian government has established tiger conservation programs and laws to prohibit poaching, it has not declined and Sumatran Tigers are still in grave danger (WWF 2013).
Human-tiger conflict
Human-tiger conflict (HTC) happens in three different groups of circumstances: tigers killing livestock, tigers killing people, and tigers approach human-dominated areas. The results are typically removal of the tiger from the wild and more negative attitudes toward tigers. HTC has decreased due to declining wild tiger populations--over the past century from number of tiger attacks decreased from 100,000 to only a few thousand cases today worldwide. More than 50 years ago human deaths caused by HTC were a few hundred annually in Sundarbans, Singapore, and Indonesia. Recently, in South Asia there are only dozens of people killed annually. The number may seem low, economic and emotional impacts on the local communities are still extremely large. Residents living close to tiger habitats tend to have high hostility toward tigers and would not support the tiger conservation measures (Goodrich 2010).
Due to recent habitat destruction and prey depletion, more tigers need to feed on domestic animals which led to more HTC. Only recently have the attacks on domestic animals increased because tigers usually avoid livestock. In recent decades livestock losses due to tiger attacks have reached as high as 12% which costs 17% of an average annual household income. Some local people have paid poachers to kill tigers. Statistics taken from Russian records show that from 1970 to 1990, retaliation killing of tigers were 29.5% of total tiger mortality and 2 to 4 tigers were legally killed annually. It is possible that the killings were extreme detrimental to the tiger population because feeding female tigers were the ones causing the conflicts--they needed more food to feed their young. The high mortality of these female tigers result in reduced reproductive rates of tiger population, decrease subadult survival and population growth rates. Urbanization, however, destroys tiger habitats but is actually causing people to live farther away from tigers and thus also decreased HTC (Goodrich 2010).
There are four categories of approaches to reduce HTC. First, apply preventive measures to reduce HTC. Second, implement mitigate measures or attempts to reduce the impacts of HTC. Third, to take measures to alleviate specific THC incidents. Fourth, require local governments to establish integrative programs that combine the previous three HTC reduction procedures (Goodrich 2010).
The following are some preventive measures that can be taken:
Improved livestock management: The best way to reduce HTC is through better livestock management. Firstly, by preventing livestock grazing in tiger habitats is the most efficient way. Using fences to enclose the livestock will keep livestock from wandering into tiger territories or setting up buffer zones around these territories can achieve the same effect. Another great way to add protection to livestock is by keeping water buffaloes with cows because water buffaloes are more aggressive and stand their ground to protect the cattle while cows just run away during tiger attacks. Some countries have started to help farmers by providing them with higher quality livestock breeds. In Bhutan there is a livestock trading program to switch out the inefficient breeds of cattle with efficient ones which will allow farmers to make more profit from fewer animals and thus decrease the livelihood of tiger killing--a few number of livestock is easier to protect.
Management of wild prey: When there are lower numbers of wild prey, tigers need to find food by attacking livestock and people. In recent decades, prey population has declined sharply due to hunting and habitat degradation. In order to increase the prey population, there must be changes in legislation and law enforcement to reduce over-harvesting and enforce habitat protection and restoration. As an example, after India passed anti-poaching measures in the Nagerhole National Park, the prey population increased by 80%. If we want to restore tiger populations, the first thing we must do is to increase the prey population, or else higher tiger density could lead to more livestock attacks.
Zoning: It has been found that where human and tiger territories overlap, the HTC tend to be higher. Zoning will prevent people and livestock from entering tiger habitat because signs will be put up near there as a warning system. When people are already living inside these zones, relocation programs are needed to move people outside of these habitats.
Reducing injuries to tigers: Often times wounded tigers are more likely to attack human and livestock; tigers are typically injured by snares, traps, or gunshots. A research shows that roughly 77% of tigers that attacked humans were wounded by humans. Anti-poaching and removal of snares will help reduce tiger injuries and HTC.
Other preventive measures: Other outlandish ways to prevent tiger attacks include wearing armored headgear and electrified mannequins to distract tigers. Carrying flares and pepper spray at all times are other great ways to scare away tigers (Note: pepper spraying a tiger should be only used as a last resort because there is a lot of danger involved)
Here are some programs to mitigate impacts of human-tiger conflicts:
It is becoming more evident that insurance programs are difficult to implement due to all of the problems listed above. However, if there are no insurance programs people would be reluctant to conserve tigers, which could lead to their further decline. Some remediation that are recommended include providing insurance compensations only for people who have used good livestock management practices so they have already done everything they can to prevent tiger conflicts. Also, trained personnel must be hired to make sure that the livestock are actually killed by tigers and not other predators. Lastly, officials must set a compensation amount for the loss of human life because at least people will feel better than not getting anything at all.
Incentive programs: These programs provide alternative sources of income to people who use conservation-friendly practices. The WCS-Russia program recently experimented by giving "tiger-friendly" certifications for timber products made from forests that implemented good poaching prevention, all sustainable use of environmental products, all which led to the better tiger conservation. However, these programs are challenged by lucrative black-market trading of tiger parts.
Reactive measures: No matter what programs have been implemented to prevent HTC, as long as there are tigers, these conflicts are inevitable. Lack of space, disease, injury, and senescence are the main factors that could lead tigers to enter villages and attack people. In these situations it will be necessary to manually remove the diseased tigers from the wild to prevent future troubles. Often times people use visual and acoustical repellents, rubber bullets, and conditioned taste aversion to drive away tigers. However, these methods are often too expensive for village people, so people have proposed other measures such as telemetry to track tiger movements and warn villagers when these animals come too close.
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Education programs: Educating the public about livestock management, compensation programs, and the various other programs listed above will be crucial in reducing HTC as tiger populations increase. Teaching people how to respond correctly to tiger attacks will be the important. In addition, the knowledge about tiger conservation laws should be spread everywhere so people know the consequences associated with poaching. Lastly, educating people about the importance of tiger conservation will in the end determine the survival of the last remaining tiger populations.
(Source: Goodrich 2010)
Saving Wild Tigers
"Saving tigers is simple. All they need is enough prey, space and protection. The difficult part is securing unswerving long-term commitment from the world to save this species."
-Dr.Barney Long
WWF has set a goal to double the tiger population by 2022. In order to achieve it, the first step is to protect existing tiger habitats, and hopefully expand them in the future. Tigers have lost 93% of their habitat due to human activities such as clearing of forests for agriculture and timber trade and building of road networks (WWF 2013).
Why use tiger parts in Chinese medicine?
Historic records of tiger occurrences in China between 604 BCE to 1990 (Kang 2010).
Although it may sound inhumane to us today to use any animal parts in medicine, in ancient China, when tigers were often regarded as pests, it was normal to kill these ferocious animals to protect people. Dating back to the Shang Dynasty (1600 to 1046 BCE), records show tigers were deeply engraved in Chinese culture and literature. There were even oracle bones records of tiger hunting. Chinese poetry, Shijing, written holds records of tigers 1046 to 500 BCE. In the past, tigers had an extensive range in China and the population was astounding shown in the figure above (Kang 2010).
Today, however, wild tigers are virtually extinct in many parts of China due to poaching and hunting tigers as a pest. It is increasing important to conserve the remaining tiger populations along China's southern and northern borders. From a study done by Aili Kang and her team of researchers by reviewing 2635 tiger records between 604 BCE and 1990 CE show that tiger populations were once continuous in tropical and temperate regions on China. The peak of tiger observations happened between 1641 and 1690 with a whopping record of 430 separate ones. However, between 1941 and 1990 there were only 96 sighting of tigers. Kang believes that tiger hunting has been the largest factor causing tiger population decline and extinction. From the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese government actually encouraged people to kill tigers and rewarded them. Habitat fragmentation and loss have also contributed to the decline of tigers. Since the 1950s, heavy logging has caused massive habitat fragmentation. Historic records show that forest cover decreased from 61% to 21% during Qing Dynasty and 8.6% in mid-20th century. During the 20th century, increasing human uses, urbanization, agriculture, and industrial uses have led to a majority of forest loss (Kang 2010). The future of Chinese tiger populations looks very bad if the government does not push for more conservation measures.
Another important reason to hunt tigers is for medicine. For more than one thousand years, tiger parts have been used in medicine. Ancient Chinese culture believed tigers have mythical powers and using them in medicine could cure diseases and replenish the body's energy. Almost every single part of a tiger can be used in medicine (Singlevisioninc 2011)
Here I will list some examples:
- Combining tiger claws along with coptis root, fleeceflower stem, poria and wild jujube see could be used as a sedative for insomnia, or sleeping disorder.
- Tiger teeth are used to treat fever. Using tiger fat, corktree bark, achyranthus root and coix lachryma joba can treat leprosy and rheumatism.
- Tiger bone is most commonly used in wine and to treat rheumatism, arthritis, headaches, paralysis, and dysentery.
- Even tiger feces can be used to treat boils, hermorrhoids, and alcoholism.
A research done by Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife predicts that if tiger poaching for Chinese medicine continues at the current rate, almost all tigers will be extinct in the near future. Even though the Chinese government has outlawed tiger poaching, the market for Chinese medicine is so lucrative that people are willing to do it anyways (Singlevisioninc 2011). It seems that we must first convince people who use Chinese medicine made from tiger parts to switch to other forms such as herbs or western medicine if there is any chance to stop the demand for tiger.
Other threats to tiger conservation
Monitoring studies done in the temperate forest of the Russian Far East and riverine forests of Nepal and India show that tiger densities vary greatly with the number of prey. In Russian Far East, where prey is scarce, there is about 0.5 tiger per 100 km^2. In the strictly protected reserve in Russian Far East there are 30 tigers in 4000 km^2. In the prey-rich Nepal and India territories, there are 20 tigers per 100 km^2 and could support around 800 tigers in 4000 km^2. Scientists have concluded that in the absence of poaching, prey is the most important determinant of tiger survival. Recovering the tiger population in Russian Far East will require large habitats and strict protection of prey. Although protecting Indian tiger habitats will be much more valuable because they can support more tigers, there are currently many people living in the conservation areas, so it will be important to connect smaller core protected areas. Thus, it will be extremely important to protect tiger prey if we hope to have successful tiger conservations (Seidensticker 2010).
Conservation time-frame
The Global Tiger Recovery Program has provided a time frame of the conservation measures that have started since the 1960s.
1960s to now: Redefined tigers as rare and charismatic animals instead of dangerous predators. This has been less successful in areas where tigers attack livestock and people.
Some challenges include: changing tiger image where tigers attack livestock and people. People nowadays are more concerned with larger problems such as climate change. Thus, it will be increasingly more challenging to raise awareness of tiger conservation.
1970s to now: Declared tigers as an endangered species and influenced many nations to ban tiger killing. Established conservation habitats such as India's Protect Tiger reserve. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) helped remove tigers from legal international commercial trade. Also, India and Nepal have initiated eco-tourism to raise the value of tigers. The selling of spotted and striped cat skins from the fashion market in European and US markets was successfully stopped. Scientists started using advanced technologies of tiger capturing and monitoring to determine tiger movements and prey dynamics to strengthen tiger conservation.
Some challenges include: tiger range countries do not have enough revenue to protect tigers and protected areas are becoming more fragmented and isolated. Illegal commercial hunting has increased because legal supply has stopped which has driven up price of tigers. Ecotourism in India and Nepal have generated a significant amount of revenue but it needs to be distributed locally to strengthen its economy. Recent increasing demand of tiger and leopard skins in Asia has driven up the price and hunting. In order to make tiger conservation better, we need to understand how tigers interact in their habitats and meet tiger's ecological needs.
1980s to now: Compensations for losses caused by tigers are distributed.
Some challenges include: Insurance for losses are not widespread and cannot be distributed in a timely fashion.
1990s to now: Started to remove tiger parts from traditional Chinese medicine. In 1993, internal trade of tiger parts was banned and World Federation of Chinese Medical Societies declared that using tiger parts in medicine is not necessary because there are many alternatives available. It has become more important to provide peer reviewed and transparent, scientific basis to accurately assess tiger and prey densities.
Some challenges include: people have turned to illegal markets to purchase tiger parts for Chinese medicine; since the supply has decreased, price has increased considerably making illegal poaching more lucrative.
1995 to now: Pushed for corporate to support tiger conservation. Exxon Mobil established Save the Tiger Fund.
Some challenges include: persuade other corporation to establish tiger conservation funds.
1997 to now: The first range assessment of tiger habitat was carried out by using global information system (GIS) and remote sensing land cover mapping with expert input. This assessment has since then been used for managing tiger landscape and identifying the locations of threats to tiger population.
Some challenges include: it is important to assess status and trend in tiger population in a near-time way. We now need to expand the range of these GIS assessments.
2000s to now: Malaysian Conservation Alliance for tigers worked with Malaysian authorities and non-government organizations to develop new tiger action plans to double the Malay tiger population. Since then, a similar plan has been developed in Bangladesh. Tiger-friendly products have been promoted.
Some challenges include: there are not many countries that have adopted these plans.
Now: Local people who live within tiger ranges are compensated for protecting tigers and their prey. Tiger conservation has been made the face of Asian biodiversity conservation. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation has added value to tigers and prey.
Some challenges include: good pilots are needed to surveillance tiger habitats. Also, we must garner high political acceptance and find ways to sustain financing.
(Source: Seidensticker 2010)
Tiger ecology and conservation needs
"We need a clear understanding of what tigers need to persist and recover for us to be able to identify and prioritize our response to the conservation challenges that keep emerging."
Land cover: Main tiger ranges are distributed across Central, East and South Asia. Focusing conservation in these areas will be the most cost-effective. Protection of tiger populations and their prey include core areas of protection, buffer zones, dispersal corridors, and sustainable management and protection of selectively logged forests. Tigers are considered "umbrella species," or top predators that actually lead to conservation on other other species. It will extremely important to educate local people to protect tigers and their prey.
Critical Habitat: These habitats are usually where female tigers nurse their young. Female tigers generally forage where there is abundant prey and water. However, these areas are usually the most dangerous (poaching hotspot). During breeding season, females need to feed more but also tend their young, which lessens their foraging times. Thus, breeding females are especially vulnerable to habitat disruptions; it will be especially important to protect these high productivity areas.
Sensitivity to human activities: Scientists have developed a Human Influence Index that is a 1-72 scale, 72 representing the highest human activities. When the index in a area is above 16, tigers have smaller chances for survival. Researches have found that tiger occupancy of forest patches in India had lower chances of survival when human disturbance was higher. On the other hand, more prey availability and larger forest patches increase tiger survival.
Dispersal: When tigers are more one-year-old, they leave their homes. Some are known to travel more 100 km to find other more suitable habitats. Tigers are blocked by unsuitable habitats such as highways, canals, and urbanization. Human-caused mortality due to poaching and road kills have made dispersal more dangerous.
Prey: Tigers are the largest meat-eaters in Asian wild land and prey on large mammals. These animals range from 20 to 100 kg including large deer, wild pigs, and wild cattle. On average, tigers kill about 10% of available prey in their territories every year. The average kill is about 50 large animals per year (for a single tiger?), and 500 reproducing individuals would be enough prey bases to support a typical tiger population. During breeding season, females require 1.7 times more food than normal.
Foraging: Tigers are solitary hunting animals and defend their habitats. Usually there is no cooperation for hunting among adults, but females tigers that have large offspring show cooperation when hunting very large prey. Male tigers dominate female tigers at kills.
Poaching: Prey recovery will not be enough if tiger mortality rates reach or exceed 15% per year. A population with 15% mortality rate will require more than 80 breeding females to maintain the population size. On the brighter side, if the survival of breeding females reach 100%, tiger population can grow at an 20% per year.
Resilience: It is the ability for an animal population or ecological system to absorb stress or changes including poaching, and habitat deterioration and fragmentation while still retaining its basic function and structure. If a tiger population totals more than 3,000 individuals they would be more resilient to these stress than smaller populations. Thus, it is becoming ever more important to protect smaller tiger population especially in fragmented in areas.
(Source: Seidensticker 2010)
Interesting methods used in tiger conservation
Although there are many tiger conservation projects being implemented worldwide, without good assessment strategies to measure and analyze the usefulness of these projects, we would not know which managements are working and which are not. Funding is limited, so better the information we have on the effectiveness of conservation measures, the more successful recovering tiger populations would become (Linkie 2010).
The two methods used in tiger population monitoring are camera trap survey and occupancy survey. Data from these surveys are then inputted into a model which will assume no births, deaths, immigration, or emigrations in the time frame studied. Also, the model assumes that there are no misidentified species and the surveys between and within the sites are independent (Linkie 2010).
Camera trap survey is a classic method where tigers are identified through "capture" and "recapture" to generate photographic identification from numerous sampling times. Then the identifications are compiled to generate the number of different tiger individuals. Some issues associated with this method include implementing the right number of cameras within a certain area and developing the best time intervals to capture the photos. Also, determining whether a tiger population is "closed" or "open" will be extremely important in determining the type of modelling used. A "closed" population means neither immigration or emigration occurs and "open" population simply describes when they are present. Thus, when a tiger population is "open," it will be extremely difficult to determine where to put the cameras allowing the capture of a tiger population's entire range. Also, when something is not detected we cannot assume that it not present. Future modifications to camera trap survey may include enhancing modeling of heterogeneity of identified tigers and also utilizing better technologies such as the Reconyx camera trap unit, which allows recording of videos--measurement of tiger speed and group size would then be possible (Linkie 2010).
Occupancy survey is method developed to overcome the shortcomings of camera trap survey and be able to assess the the tiger population in large areas. The focus of occupancy survey is not to determine how many animals are in a landscape but where the animals are distributed. The most important of occupancy survey is to determine what proportion of the landscape is actually being occupied. Typically, this method requires dividing the map into grid cells 205 x 188 km^2 large and determine where tigers are spotted using transect segments. One large problem associated with occupancy survey is the time and money required to conduct a thorough survey of an entire region (Linkie 2010; monitoring tigers 2009).
Using molecular genetic tools
(Be prepared to read a lot of technical jargon)
Since the 1980s, molecular genetic have used to identify the different tiger subspecies. The early techniques used include comparative karyology (study of cell nuclei), albumin immunological distance, and allozyme electrophoresis. Later, partial sequencing of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes of different felids were used to distinguish any ambiguities among different tiger subspecies. Scientists have found that even within tiger subspecies there were still considerable genetic variability and sometimes across different subspecies there were not much genetic variability at all. These problems call for even more precise genetic assessment in order to correct distinguish one subspecies from another. Beginning in 1984 until 2004, scientists used 134 tiger specimen to characterize the genetic variations among all subspecies (Luo 2010).
Using MIST to develop law enforcement monitoring
A computerized management information system (MIST) is used for ranger-based data collection. From 2008 to 2010, a standardized patrol-based law enforcement (LEM) monitoring was used in the Tiger Forever Program across 8 sites to monitor the effectiveness of law enforcement within the tiger reserve. Law enforcement is a very important part of tiger conservation because it prevents any illegal activities from happening within a reserve. The goals of law enforcement are to determine where, when, and how illegal activities happen and how to stop them with the minimum human and financial resources. In order to develop an effective system, monitoring criminal activities and determine the areas that need the most enforcement. Patrolling by routine surveillance patrols and mobile patrol units are the two most effective ways to collect information on criminal activities. However, the information they collect are usually bias because they tend to patrol in areas where illegal activities are already high, so another method must be implemented to create a more holistic and unbiased model (Stokes 2010).
This is where MIST comes in. Computerized management will help maximize the data collected from patrolling to develop better planning and decision-making. MIST is designed with a a bottom-up approach to meet law enforcement needs by analyzing and evaluate data collected by park rangers on threats and law enforcement activities (Stokes 2010).
Below is a brief overview of the components to LEM coupled with MIST:
Institutional support: The first step is to make MIST implementation more successful which requires the cooperation from different law enforcement, area agencies, and local decision-making personnel. Good communication among these different groups will be vital to the successful implementation of law enforcement.
Enforcement: On-the-ground patrolling staff is the most important component of illegal hunting protection. Using MIST to develop patrol strategies and efficient enforcement responses will be important. Setting minimum standards for rangers will ensure they do good jobs at data collection.
Data collection: Rangers need to record data of poaching, land clearance, logging, arrests, and fines. Then the data is inputted into MIST to create a hierarchical diagram to make the data easily understandable and accessible.
Feedback: Using the feedback from site managers and patrols will help create better MIST. Then the MIST can be used to create outputs of standardized reports of charts of threat indicators, patrol efforts, and ranger performance indicators to help create better planning.
Institutional stability at site level: In order to create long-term success, the stability of patrol staffs and site managers is very important. If these law enforcement officials often change it will become harder to guarantee good data collection. Maintaining permanent staff members will be important to ensure better enforcement.
Dissemination and communication: It will important for different agencies to come together to help plan out better institutional mechanisms
(Source: Stokes 2010)
Telemetry
GPS telemetry was first used on large mammals such as elephants, moose, and bears because they were large enough to carry the devices. As GPS technology developed through the years, the device has become smaller and can be carried by smaller animals. Also, GPS can track longer distances which will be especially beneficial for tracking animals that travel long ranges such as tigers and leopards. Researchers have used GPS systems to successfully monitor animal movement patterns and developed plans to mitigate human-animal conflicts. Understanding the dispersal patterns of tigers will be important to develop conservation plans to determine where to focus these plans. Although GPS is definitely way above radio telemetry there are still problems. The first problem with GPS is technical failure, which ranges from 10% to 50%. The other problem with GPS is the high cost. Usually one collar costs $8000, but the price is starting to decline as the technology develops. Several projects in Southeast Asia have successfully used GPS for tiger research and conservation (Miller 2010).
Using canines for tiger conservation
The first category of detection dogs are scat detection dogs (SDD). These dogs search scats through air-scenting instead of ground-scenting, so they do not actually track animals but search for scents of scat left in the air. This method was first developed in 1990s by the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington. Researchers needed an efficient way for identifying scat, so they trained dogs to distinguish scat among different species. Since then, almost 24 different carnivore species have been successfully surveyed by SDD. Using SDD needs corporation from the dog, the handler, and orienteer. There are only a few species of dogs that are capable to be good SDD, so careful selection is necessary. The handler's job is to read the SDD's body language and understand it. The orienteer works behind the SDD and the handler to make sure everything is going according to plan and make sure that the SDD stay interested such as manually hiding scat if scat is scarce. The strengths of using SDD are that it is a noninvasive method which minimizes sampling bias and SDD can survey a large area very quickly and provide accurate results. The biggest weaknesses of using SDD is training the dog because it is time and money consuming. Maintenance and continued care of these dogs will be important to ensure their longevity and remain stimulated to work (Kerley 2010).
Similar to SDD, scent matching dogs (SMD) are capable of matching scat samples with the individuals. SMD identified scats correctly 87% to 98% for an Amur tiger study, and SMD do not need a handler or orienteer like SDD does because SMD can identify the scat in a laboratory. SMD accomplishes scent matching by sniffing the target scat first and then it will walk to the corresponding scat--the animals that produced these scats are known. After the dog gets it right, it is rewarded with a piece of food or playtime. In the 1980s, Russian scientists first developed the method of SMD to use for better field research and monitoring. Like SDD, SMD can also provide noninvasive and reliable identification of scats allowing cheaper and faster recognition than camera traps and DNA analysis methods. In areas where money is an issue, SMD can replace DNA analysis. A weakness with SMD is the scarcity of dogs that actually have the ability to identify scat well and the training process is long and costly (Kerley 2010).
Apart from scat detection and identification, dogs are valuable warning tools in places where tigers are numerous. In places like Sundarbans and Bangladesh, dogs are trained to warn people when tigers are near--these dogs make movements such as acting afraid or staying close to their owners. The dog warning system is cheap and can be maintained for only $0.9 per month. However, dogs can sometimes mistake other large animals with tigers (Kerley 2010).
Some successes
In 2010, the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP) laid out approaches to recover wild tigers including raising more discussion about saving wild tigers, balancing and overcoming the challenges posed by infrastructure development threatening tiger habitats, addressing all the problems associated with tiger conservation, creating more political influence, and generating enough finance to support biodiversity conservation (Seidensticker 2010).
Conclusion
If we all work together, we can restore tiger populations! Using methods I have briefly explained above, conservationists are able to successfully monitor tiger populations and hopefully develop more awareness in the future to prevent illegal hunting and habitat degradation and destruction. The story does not end here, there are still so many things to be done if we want to double tiger populations by 2022.
References:
- Goodrich, J. 2010. Tiger Conservation in the Year of the Tiger, 2010. Integrative Zoology 2010; 5: 283-284.
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