Global Tiger Population May Grow 200% By 2022: Study
Global conservation efforts to protect the tiger population may be fruitioning. Experts believe that the global tiger population might grow by 2022.
A new study published Friday in the journal Science Advances shows that goals set at a 2010 summit in Russia are beginning to be reached. It is now possible for the tiger population to double in about six years. Google Earth and Global Forest Watch experts analyzed high-resolution data from 76 tiger habitats in 13 countries. Based on the forest loss information, the world is showing enough habitat for up to 6,400 tigers by 2022, provided the forest habitats remain intact.
"When we did this study, we thought there would be a lot more forest loss because these are some of the fastest growing economies in the world, the tiger range countries," said lead author Anup Joshi from the University of Minnesota, speaking to FOX News. "What we found was that in most tiger conservation landscapes ... it was pretty intact. That is because the protection is pretty good, the people on the ground are protecting the core tiger reserves."
The forest loss in the areas they analysed had seemed to go down by just 7.7 percent in 14 years. It surprised Joshi and his colleagues, as tiger populations have shown a fall by 90 percent of the originally estimated numbers. In India and Nepal, records show 61 percent and 31 percent more tigers respectively. But 98 percent of the forest loss was discovered in just ten of the landscapes, in Indonesia, Laos, and Malaysia and other nations.
"In Nepal and India, conservation is going pretty strong and a lot of the community are involved," Joshi continued. "What this shows is that if there is a will and good protection is going on, we can still meet the goal of doubling wild tigers by 2022."
