NEW DELHI (Reuters) - "Alarmed by reports of a rapid fall in tiger numbers, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ordered a police investigation and created a new taskforce to save the endangered species.
Environment and Forests Department spokesman Amit Singhal said a clearer picture of the decline in the tiger population across India would come in April when an expert panel finishes its own investigation. "Only then can we say conclusively whether the number of tigers has gone up or down," he said on Friday. "The problem is there in some reserves, but in certain reserves sightings have really gone up."
Indian media and wildlife activists have reported a dramatic drop in the number of tigers and an increase in poaching. On Thursday, Singh chaired a meeting of the national wildlife board -- it's first in 17 months -- and ordered a new taskforce of forest officials, wildlife experts and community leaders to report on the status of Project Tiger and the tiger population. He also banned giving tigers to foreign dignitaries and established a powerful wildlife crime prevention bureau. Officials say tigers may have been wiped out entirely in the Sariska sanctuary in the desert state of Rajasthan -- where the Project Tiger conservation program began in 1973 and where there were as many as 16-18 big cats a year ago.
Activists fear the story may be the same in sanctuaries across India, which has almost half the world's surviving tigers. "It's probably the biggest conservation scandal in modern times," Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, said. "There are some parks with none or so few tigers it's not a viable population. Sariska has been an incredible wakeup call."
EDIT
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=7947744§ion=news&src=rss/uk/scienceNews
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
