More tigers poached in India so far this year than in 2015

Conservationists say census figures are ‘worrying’ and cast doubts on the country’s anti-poaching efforts

Friday 29 April 2016 10.43 BST

More tigers have been killed in India already this year than in the whole of 2015, a census showed Friday, raising doubts about the country’s anti-poaching efforts.

The Wildlife Protection Society of India, a conservation charity, said 28 of the endangered beasts had been poached by 26 April, three more than last year.

Tiger meat and bones are used in traditional Chinese medicine and fetch high prices.

“The stats are worrying indeed,” said Tito Joseph, programme manager at the group.

“Poaching can only be stopped when we have coordinated, intelligence-led enforcement operations, because citizens of many countries are involved in illegal wildlife trade. It’s a transnational organised crime.”

Poachers use guns, poison and even steel traps and electrocution to kill their prey.

India is home to more than half of the world’s tigerpopulation with 2,226 in its reserves according to the last count in 2014.

The figures come after a report by the WWF and the Global Tiger Forum said the number of wild tigers in the world had increased for the first time in more than a century to an estimated 3,890.

The report cited improved conservation efforts, although its authors cautioned that the rise could be partly attributed to improved data gathering.

Source ...

An endangered orphan Amur tiger cub saved from poachers in Russian Far East

By The Siberian Times reporter

23 February 2013

Environmentalists rescued the male cub after its mother apparently died in unexplained circumstances.

The cub was trying to hunt in the taiga but due to inexperience was doomed to failure. Had wildlife specialists not intervened, he was likely to have died. 

'The tiger cub is very active and put up a fight,' said  Vladimir Vasilyev, head of the the Primorye wildlife protection service. 

It took three days to track him. 

The cub will now go to a rehabilitation centre before being released back into the wild. 

Experts think the cub is the brother of a six-month-old tigress rescued from a poachers' trap ten days earlier in a nearby location. 

She was badly injured by the trap and needed surgery in Arsenyev town to remove two claws after suffering severe damage to her paw. She was said to be in a 'weak' condition but is now undergoing rehabilitation in Ussuriysk. 

It was not immediately clear why the mother had died, but poaching continues to be a threat despite huge efforts from the Russian and Chinese governments along with voluntary wildlife groups to save the endangered species. Estimates suggest around 450 of the creatures remain in the wild. 

But up to 50 Amur tigers are slaughtered illegally by poachers each year despite efforts to crackdown on hunting. The species remain on the endangered list.

http://siberiantimes.com/home/born-in-siberia/an-endangered-orphan-amur-tiger-cub-saved-from-poachers-in-russian-far-east/

Elephants being poached in Burma

New 'open' Myanmar opening up to poachers too.

February 2013. Though not on the scale of poaching in Africa, a new and worrying development has occurred in Myanmar, where at least 11 elephants were killed by poachers in 2012. An estimated 3,000 wild elephants still live in Burma, but until very recently they had remained relatively untouched by elephant poaching.

However as Myanmar opens up to the world, and with its proximity to China with whom it shares a highly porous border, elephant and tiger poaching were bound to become more of a problem. In fact Wildlife Extra reported a few years ago that tiger parts were openly on sale in some markets.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/myanmar-elephants013.html