Tigers – Forecast: partly sunny with a chance of cataclysms

All Is Not Lost

To seek good environmental news nowadays feels like seeking fragments of Earth-friendly flotsam bobbing on toxic seas of human depredation of our living world. But at times glimmers of hope help ward off despair.

Herewith three glimmers from the world of tigers:

First, a survey, announced in 2016, found wild tiger numbers up worldwide for the first time in a century. See Survey finds tiger numbers up 2010-2016

(It’s sad indeed that we have to consider tiger numbers in the three-to-four thousands as a success, when at the beginning of the last century the number the tiger population was estimated at 100,000.)

Note there are six existing subspecies of tiger (according to National Geographic), of which there are stunning pix and capsule descriptions to be found here.

“Subspecies” are populations of tigers that are separated by geographic range and/or morphology; all can viably interbreed, but they do not cross paths. Bengal tigers—the ones you’re most likely to see in a zoo—make up about 70% of the aggregate number of wild tigers. With the other 30% split up among the remainder, the risk that any single subspecies could get wiped out is great. Indochinese and South China tigers are especially imperiled.

Continue reading “Some “Good” Environmental News: Tigers Again”

For those of us depressed by the continuing hammer blows delivered to the environment by humans, there are a few bright spots. A couple below, although one can’t sugarcoat them.

Bengal Tiger Resurgence

I recently heard that the population of Bengal Tigers is on the upswing in India (they have been increasing in Nepal too). I couldn’t find that recent story with a Web search, but here’s a report from January 2015, with numbers cited by India’s Environment Minister: Bengal Tiger Numbers Up

Assuming we can trust NDTV and India’s environment minister, these are promising numbers—an increase of 58% in seven years.

Unfortunately, there’s a downside to these stats: the populations are scattered, meaning genetic diversity is still low, and the total number of the big cats, unsurprisingly, is 1/50th of what it was circa 1900 (then 100,000). At the same time, India’s human population has gone up by a factor of 4.

Continue reading “Good News, Good News, and Unsurprising Bad News on the Environment: Tigers, Amur Leopards Get a Break, Not So Elephants”