A WWF team in Nepal is hoping to purchase more anti-poaching and surveillance equipment along with field patrols, site assessment and training more field workers to aid in the protection of wild tigers.
The WWF-Canada is making donations to help wild tigers in Nepal go twice as far. For a limited time, dedicated conservation supporters Alan and Patricia Koval will generously match all donations up to $75,000 in support of WWF-Canada’s efforts to double the world’s population of wild tigers.
Right now fewer than 3,900 tigers remain in the wild.
For over 1,000 years, tigers have been hunted as status symbols, decorative items such as wall and floor coverings, as souvenirs and curios, and for use in traditional Asian medicines.
Hunting for sport probably caused the greatest decline in tiger populations up until the 1930s. In many areas tigers were also regarded as a pest that needed to be exterminated. By the late 1980s, the greatest threats were loss of habitat due to human population expansion and activities such as logging; and trade in tiger bone for traditional medicines.
Tigers remain always under risk because of human activities which include:
- Poaching, which includes the illegal trade of tiger parts and products
- Habitat loss and fragmentation, including from illegal logging and commercial plantations
- Retributive killing due to human-tiger conflicts
- Looming impacts of climate change on their habitats.
