Summer 2022

Dear Friends:                                                                                                   

It’s 2022, The Year of The Tiger, and a major tiger summit is scheduled for Vladivostok in September. It remains to be seen how successful this summit will be in the face of international condemnation of the Russian war in Ukraine.  In advance of this conference, the London-based Environmental Investigative Agency has sent out a clarion call for action with this reminder that, “tigers are still being farmed, trafficked and killed for their body parts. Seen by wildlife criminals as ‘walking gold’, they’re reduced to the value of their skins, bones and teeth.” 

Sharon Guynup, in an excellent and comprehensive story in the May 31st edition of the Mongabay.com environmental newsletter, writes, “As the world celebrates the Year of the Tiger in 2022, human activities continue threatening their wild survival, slaughtering or trading live tigers and their prey and encroaching on their last shreds of habitat. It is why tigers are the most endangered of big cats.”  Sharon discusses the current state of affairs across Asia for the world’s wild tigers and takes on the issue of tiger farming.  At the heart of her story is the blatant disregard of the 2007 Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) decision signed by tiger range countries, that says, “tigers should be bred only for conservation purposes, and not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives.”

Probably no place on earth is there a more egregious assault on the dignity of the animal kingdom than in Northern Laos at a place called the Kings Romans Group, a resort run by, and catering to, Chinese. It is a 12-square-mile area leased from Laos by a Hong-Kong Based Co. in Bokeo Province, Laos, also called the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. The Kings Romans Group is run by a notorious Chinese mobster, Zhao Wei, who, according to the U.S. Government, is a master criminal involved in trafficking of humans, narcotics, and endangered species.  It features endless cages of tigers, bears, pangolins and other animals awaiting their certain fate. The resort offers plates of bear paw, pangolin and sautéed tiger meat paired with tiger bone wine.  Now they have plans to “take it up a notch”.  Gregory McCann, writing in the April 13th edition of The Asian Sentinel, says they plan to expand into the surrounding mountains. McCann quotes the head keeper of the live animal enclosures, “After we move to our new location in the mountains, there will be over a thousand tigers. A thousand tigers!  We can bring the tigers, we can slaughter the tigers, and brew wine. It’s very easy. This can be done. It’s a road to wealth.”

There is no scientific proof of the efficacy of tiger parts in medicine. That said, the true believer will always prefer wild to farmed. If you really believed that a tonic made from tiger bones will help your rheumatism or add vigor to your life, would you prefer a tonic made from a 500 lb. king of the forest in Central India, or a tonic made from a 200 lb. scrawny specimen that shares a cage with 20 other tigers in N. Laos?  Farming tigers perpetuates the myth of the medicinal value of tiger parts thereby stimulating the demand for wild tigers.

At the last Year of the Tiger Summit in 2010, all major participating countries and non-governmental organizations deferred to China and would not allow the topic of farming tigers to be discussed, this in the interest of consensus to the stated goals of the summit. Let’s see if they now have the backbone to stand up for the tiger rather than render the earth’s most magnificent apex predator a mere commodity for consumption.

Meanwhile, where the stripes are, this is what we are doing to help:

INDIA

 It is with great pleasure that, since 1996, The Fund for The Tiger has been able to partner with, and support, various hard-hitting and effective programs of The Wildlife Protection Society of India  [WPSI] under the dynamic leadership of Belinda Wright. The Investigation into Poaching and Trade of Wild Tigers, their signature campaign, has clearly been paying off.  On July 6th I received confirmation from Nitin Desai, WPSI’s Director of Operations in Central India, that since two major wildlife crime operations, one in Maharashtra in 2013, and the other in the village of Gandai in 2015, there has not been a report of tiger poaching for international trade by organized crime in Central India. This is a remarkable accomplishment.  But tigers continue to die domestically. In 2021 the WPSI investigated the deaths of 127 wild tigers who died from infighting, retaliatory poisoning, electrocutions, road or train accidents, local poaching, and natural causes. Working hand in hand with their Poaching and Trade Program is the WPSI’s comprehensive Wildlife Crime Database which monitors and co-ordinates wildlife crime investigations throughout South Asia.  Thus far in 2022, WPSI has assisted enforcement agencies with information on a total of 16 wildlife cases in India and 6 cases in Nepal, resulting in the apprehension of 62 alleged criminals.            

The stronghold of India’s wild tiger population, the States of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh in Central India, have always demanded focus on protection efforts. Countless local communities live alongside its rich wildlife, and some of the major conservation challenges in this landscape have been poaching of tigers and their prey species, human-wildlife conflict, and habitat fragmentation. With these issues in mind, Operation Bondomobile was launched in 2011 with the generous support of David Bonderman to create anti-poaching tiger conservation awareness in the fringe villages of Kanha and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserves.  Under the program, WPSI deploys audio-visual awareness vans to raise tiger conservation and anti-poaching awareness in the villages that fringe Central India’s key tiger landscapes. Between January to June 2022, the Bondomobile team in Bandhavgarh National Park visited 98 villages and 32 weekly markets, and handed out 6,955 Secret Information Reward Scheme information cards, which give compensation for actionable intelligence on wildlife crimes. Between January to June 2022, they received about 55 calls on their dedicated hotline. Of these, 6 leads from local villagers resulted in the detection of poaching cases that led to the arrest of 32 alleged wildlife criminals. The deterrent factor of the Reward Scheme became apparent a few years ago when WPSI operatives, posing as interested buyers of tiger parts, approached several known poachers near Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. “Do not get involved”, they were told, “there are eyes and ears everywhere.”

Since 2001, we have supported a WPSI Field Officer operating in and around Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. This gentleman runs the Bondomobile effort, conducts wildlife crime education workshops with students and young forest officers and is a liason with the Forest Department when a crisis emerges. In the first 6 months of 2022, he assisted the Park authorities in investigating the deaths of nine tigers and three leopards.

NEPAL

Nepal has become the international role model for community-based tiger conservation and, along with India, one of only two tiger-range countries to approach the stated goal of the 2010 St. Petersberg Tiger Summit of doubling its tiger population by the next Year of the Tiger- 2022!  At Bardia alone, tiger numbers have increased from 18 to 87 since 2009. Buffer zones have been created at the edges of the national parks to allow tigers more room for dispersal and the establishment of new habitat. At the same time community forests have been created to allow villagers to tap the resources of the forests- fresh water, wood, and to collect grass and fodder for their livestock and homes. With rising tiger numbers, the intersection of the buffer zones and community forests have become a breeding ground for conflict.  In the communities surrounding both Bardia and Chitwan National Parks, 35 people have been killed by tiger attacks in the past three years. Perhaps the solutions range from scaling back the boundaries of the community forests to Government intervention to supplement the resources villagers tap from these forests. Whatever answers Nepal comes up with, this alarming increase of tiger-human conflict has made community-based wildlife conservation increasingly important and challenging.

In 2009, The Fund for The Tiger began funding the Community Based Anti-Poaching Unit (CBAPU) at Dalla in the southwestern corner of Nepal’s Bardia National Park. Our post, in the Khata corridor, a network of 74 community forests covering 202 sq km, has secured safe passage for tigers between Bardia National Park in Nepal and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India. Over the last 5 years, 46 individual tigers have been detected using the corridor with other iconic and threatened mammal species, including the Asian elephant and the greater one-horned rhino. The CBAPU idea met with resounding success and there are now 93 separate groups with almost 2500 youth volunteers working in conservation efforts across the Bardia landscape.

Based on the success of the CBAPU at Dalla Post, Bardia, we have consolidated our efforts at Chitwan National Park in Nepal and have initiated a CBAPU, based on the Dalla model, at Meghauli village. Dr. Bhim Gurung coordinates this program which runs through the Nepal Tiger Trust. There are now 118 members conducting regular patrolling with the Nepal Army and Chitwan National Park rangers.

We continue to support the Long-Term Tiger Monitoring Project started by Chuck McDougal in the 1970’s.  Last September, our tiger tracking team received a 3-year commission from Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. The goal is to understand the tiger’s use of buffer zone habitat as dispersal corridor. We are pleased to lend our support to lead tiger tracker, Baburam Mahato, a crucial ally in the Forest Department’s efforts to protect all endangered wildlife. He is one of the first to be called to the scene to investigate incidents of wildlife deaths or human-tiger conflict. Baburam’s Nepal Tiger Trust team has also been involved in the latest Nepal tiger census.

In spite of Nepal’s recent success in tiger conservation, we must be reminded of a sobering fact that Nepal and Kathmandu remain a hotbed of endangered species smuggling. An investigative report last Fall documented trade routes from Kashmir to Kathmandu, transiting through Lhasa, and on to the marketplace in the Far East. Police reports say Chinese nationals have taken over from Kashmiri traders and that Kathmandu is the hub for international trade in wildlife parts. Recent cases include smuggling 162 kgs. of pangolin scales via Kathmandu Airport and the seizure of 13 tiger bones from a hotel in Thamel. Last July, police arrested four Chinese nationals with tiger, snow leopard and other wildlife parts at a hotel in Kathmandu and recent Chinese investments in hotels and tourism are reportedly increasing wildlife smuggling networks in Nepal.