It’s Hard Out Here for a Tiger, World Bank Says

The tiger life used to be relatively simple: They stalked around dining on deer or boar or fish or whatever else took their fancy, and took swims when they wanted to cool off. The solitary cats were the masters of their own fates, and when they encountered a stray human they could choose between mauling him and impressing the hell out of him with their majestic, haughty ways. It's not so simple anymore. The number of tigers in the wild has declined from more than 100,000 a century ago to about 4,000 left in scattered pockets around Asia today. Developing towns with bursting populations have encroached on tigers' habitats, reducing both their territory and their prey. The reverence that humans can't help feeling for the animals has also turned sour, as tigers are hunted by poachers who fuel the black market trade in tiger skins and body parts, many of which end up in traditional Chinese pharmacies. In response, the World Bank announced yesterday the launch of a Tiger Conservation Initiative that will try to bring wild tigers back from the brink of extinction. Many see it as a last ditch effort to save the big cat. "Just as with many of the other challenges of sustainability -- such as climate change, pandemic disease or poverty -- the crisis facing tigers overwhelms local capabilities and transcends national boundaries," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said at the launching at the National Zoo in Washington. "The decline in the numbers of tigers is shocking," Zoellick said, adding that because of poaching, tigers in many supposedly "secure" reserves across Asia had simply been wiped out. "Tigers are disappearing from Central Asia, and from East and South Asia," he said