Tiger Demographic

[Dr Panthera]

@Shardul The half of tigers reside in unprotected area statement is used by Karanth who is quite critical of the census results as you know, it is not an assumption but more of a reasonable concern and he of all people affirmed again that doubling tiger numbers by 2022 is not going to happen.
Poachers will never be discouraged by awareness, education, or anything other than legal consequences, they would annihilate all tigers given half a chance.
The bengal tiger Panthera tigris tigris is classified EN (endangered ) on the IUCN list , a taxon can still be in that category even with 2500 mature individuals if they meet a set of criteria related to :
A_ Decline in population size
B- Shrinking of geographic range
C-Population is less than 2500 mature individuals and some other criteria are met.
D-Population is less 250 mature individuals regardless of any other factors.
E-20% probability of extinction in the wild within 20 years or 100 % in 100 years if current trends continue.
Even in tigers "heaven" in the indian subcontinent the tiger is still endangered.
We can take heart that at least the numbers are rebounding in some areas and it is doing much better than other tiger populations. Reply

[Dr Panthera]

And the best data is provided by Walston et al. 2010 ( including Karanth on data from India )...in 2010 the world has 42 source populations breeding populations of tigers that have more 25 breeding tigresses totalling 2126 tigers out of which 18 populations were in India over 16040 KM2 and numbered 970 tigers (over 18 months of age as their numbers were from the Indian tiger census in 2010 ). Clearly many of these where juveniles or transient adults.
So whether the number of breeding tigers in India is 500,1000, or 2000 it does not matter..all these numbers are abysmally low and ecosystems in a country the size of India with the concentration of large ungulates in several areas it should have many more tigers.
Selous game reserve, a 50,000 km2 protected area for hunting and filming lions in southern Tanzania has 7600 lions ( Riggio 2013) twice the number of wild tigers in the whole world today, yet you see media and government in several Asian countries trumpeting their tiger conservation success!!!
Tigers are in trouble, everywhere, and it is sad when this is ignored and modest increases are celebrated. Reply