Last Call of the Wild? Last of the Forest Guardians
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2/11 LAST CAll OF THE WILD? Last of the Forest Guardians I imagine a tiger. [H]e’ll move through the forest and his days Little more than 3,000 tigers are leaving his traces on the mud banks left in the wild. Will an international of a river whose name he doesn’t know effort give them a future? (in his world there are no names or past or future, only the certainty of now). STORY BY CHERYL LYN DYBAS PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN GOODRICH —Jorge Luis Borges, The Other Tiger, translation by Cheli Durán anya and Galia, guardians of the forest, once which oversees the Siberian Tiger Project. Galia was the to record the motions of large wild animals. In her last A young male Amur, or Siberian, tiger patrols the edge of a roamed the coniferous woodlands of the fourth Amur tiger in the project to die in the past year of picture, Tanya peacefully looked out to the Sea of Japan, forest on the Russian coast of the Sea of Japan, in the Sikhote- Russian Far East. Under cover of spruce, natural causes, or of conflict with humans when the tiger perhaps for the final time. Alin Biosphere Reserve. In this combined image, the forest has pine, and birch, the two tigresses stalked sika unnaturally lost its fear of people. The sisters’ fates reflect the plight of tigers every- tiger eyes. deer and other prey. They met their ends in Scientists initially suspected the cause might have been where. Tigers were once found in forests and other February 2, 2011, the species’ range was less than 7 per- T those same dark, boreal woods. canine distemper, a viral illness diagnosed in other Amur dense vegetation throughout Asia, from the Cauca- cent of its former extent [see map on page 27]. Of the Tanya and Galia were Siberian, or more properly, tigers and common in Russia in domestic cats and dogs. sus and the Caspian Sea to Siberia and Indonesia. In nine recognized tiger subspecies, only five still survive Amur tigers (the subspecies Panthera tigris altaica). They That disease is a source of great concern: “An epidemic the past century, however, the number of wild tigers in the wild: the Amur/Siberian, Bengal, Indochinese, were also sisters. On June 1, 2010, Galia, the last radio- sweeping through the region could wipe out this tiger worldwide has plummeted from more than 100,000 to Malayan, and Sumatran. The Bali, Caspian, and Javan collared study animal of the long-running Siberian Ti- population,” says Miquelle. But Galia’s behavior did not little more than 3,000. More tigers now live in captiv- are extinct, and the South China tiger is “functionally ger Project, was shot in the Russian Far East village of fully conform to symptoms of distemper. Laboratory tests ity, an estimated 13,000. Less than one in ten of those extinct”—surviving only in zoos. Terney because of the danger she posed to local citizens. to identify an infectious agent are still pending. are purebreds in managed collections; the majority are Galia had abandoned a three-week-old litter of cubs and Galia’s sister Tanya was felled not by disease, but by of unknown or mixed subspecies. Yet the managed anya. And Lena, Natasha, Katya, Nelya, Olga. wandered into Terney looking for a meal. All attempts to poachers on a road between Terney and another Rus- Amur tiger population, many of whose founders were Their names alone tell little of their lives. But in scare her away failed. sian village, Plastun. On November 20, 2007, Miquelle taken into captivity in the 1930s or earlier, has greater Tdeath they join the ranks of dozens of Amur tigers “This abnormal behavior suggests disease, maybe neu- and his colleagues heard only silence from Tanya’s radio genetic diversity than the remaining wild population of killed by poachers. rological,” says biologist Dale G. Miquelle of the Wildlife collar. Four days earlier, the tigress had lazed in the sun the subspecies. “Poaching, infectious diseases, prey depletion, and Conservation Society (WCS), Director of WCS Russia, in front of a camera trap, a research camera designed As the Chinese Year of the Tiger drew to a close on habitat loss from logging have taken down Amur tigers,” 24 NATURAL H I S TO RY February 2011 February 2011 NATURAL H I S TO RY 25 gladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao People’s Demo- cratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam outlined a Global Tiger Recovery Pro- gram and signed a Declaration on Tiger Conservation (the “St. Petersburg Dec- laration”). Mindful of what they called an obligation to future generations, they wrote that “we must act now” and HY P “strive to double the number of tigers P across their range by 2022.” OGEOGRA ATIONSHI L In an accompanying document, L E R PHY L TS Global Tiger Recovery Program (2010– I D RIA 2022), the signatories recommend such D efforts as protecting and enhancing ti- IGER AN T IAN ger habitats; eradicating poaching and P AS the illegal trade in tiger parts used in C . 2009 “MITOCHON traditional Chinese medicine; working L XTINCT ET A E ll with local communities to gain wider E4125 4(1): NE O conservation participation; using mod- OS L P ern and innovative scientific methods RIGIN OF THE O IGER,” worldwide; increasing domestic fund- T ing sources; involving international UR Am INATES THE M financial and law-enforcement institu- U JOE LEMONNIER, AFTER DRISCO Ill tions such as the World Bank and Inter- THETO pol; and building public awareness by Along with a decline in tiger numbers, the animals’ ranges have shrunk dramatically, celebrating Global Tiger Day on July compared with their historic extent in the late nineteenth century. In addition, of the nine currently recognized tiger subspecies, three are entirely extinct, and one, the South 29 each year. China subspecies, is extinct in the wild, surviving only in zoos. Forum delegates called for an invest- ment of some $350 million over the next five years, be- based on sex (males’ ranges are larger) and availability yond the domestic financing provided by individual tiger of prey. Because of the severity of the climate and low range states. The focus of efforts, the tiger range state density of prey, the Amur tiger may require a range of ambassadors found, should be on “tiger conservation land- 200 to 400 square miles. scapes”—areas that support tigers, their prey, and a wider If there is no habitat to sustain a prey base, however, Lyuti is the resident tiger of the Utyos Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in the Russian Far East. A wild-born Amur tiger, he was toring project, hopes it will “warn of coming dangers for biodiversity. there can’t be tigers. Just found as a cub in the mid-1990s and brought to the late Vladimir tigers—in time to allow us to correct them.” before the international fo- Kruglov, who trapped tigers before it became illegal. Kruglov Some 500,000 square miles of suitable tiger habitat n addition to coniferous woodlands (taiga), rum opened, the Russian took care of the cub, and that soon led to his establishing the remain across Asia. Except in the Russian Far East, how- tigers occupy a wide variety of habitats, in- government took a step center. ever, tiger populations are restricted to small pockets, Icluding tropical evergreen forests, deciduous toward protecting entire largely in protected areas, according to biologist Joe forests, mangrove swamps, thorn forests, and grass landscapes and individual says Miquelle. The picture across Asia is much the same Walston of WCS and his colleagues. The team recently jungles. The common factors are some form of sites: it announced a ban on for other tiger subspecies. conducted a study of forty-two sites where tigers are still dense vegetative cover, sufficient large prey, and cutting down Korean pines Official estimates of Amur tiger numbers in Russia found (so-called source sites); the results were published access to water. Tigers are adept swimmers and (Pinus koraiensis). Rising come from full surveys conducted once every ten years; in the journal PLoS Biology in September 2010. It’s be- have been recorded easily swimming across rivers. global demand for the pines the last such all-Russia survey was in 2005 and found lieved that those last tiger strongholds have the potential To keep cool, they also spend much of their time for wood for large-scale fewer than 500 tigers. A yearly monitoring program of to repopulate larger landscapes. Protecting those sites, during the heat of the day in lakes and ponds. construction projects and sixteen Russian tiger locations gives a limited snapshot the researchers say, is essential. Tigers reach highest densities where they can for garden furniture led to between full surveys. In 2005, the expert assessment was To address the global tiger decline, thirteen countries regularly prey on a large deer species—such as a huge increase in logging that 115 adult tigers inhabited those sixteen sites. In 2009, thought to have tigers—known as tiger range states—sent swamp, rusa, or red deer—or on wild boar. In of the trees in Amur tiger the assessment was reduced to 56. high-level emissaries to a meeting late last year in Saint many cultures people avoid eating pigs, and so are range. The pines’ cones are John Seidensticker, a tiger biologist at the Smithson- Petersburg. Hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir in direct competition with tigers usually only for critical food for tiger prey An Amur tiger has left tracks in the ian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and chair of the Putin, the International Tiger Conservation Forum took deer.