SH-HHH-HH… A Mainstream Press Mistake Might Just Save Tigers from Extinction

Earlier this week, these were the appalling numbers released in the news about the Asian tiger population:

In 1990, there were an estimated 100,000 tigers in the wild. Today, only 3,200 exist.

Last month on Lull, I gave you the dire stats on the lion population. And I warned you about the tigers’ plight as the CITES convention drew near. But this is worse than I thought. Whereas it took 50 years to eliminate 95 percent of the world’s lions, it took only 20 years to do similar damage (97 percent) to the world’s tigers.

Was this really true?! The numbers were so catastrophic I felt compelled to investigate. And guess what?

I couldn’t verify all those numbers through any animal conservation Web site or through the U.N., the organization that allegedly released the numbers to the press.

Somebody somewhere made a mistake that news media are now disseminating around the world. At least, I think that’s what happened. I’m waiting to hear from Time magazine’s editor on the subject.

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.”
—Attributed to Mark Twain*

The real numbers are still grim. It’s true that there are only about 3,200 tigers left in the wild. And it’s true that at one time the population was around 100,000—in the early 1900s. But before you sigh a breath of relief, consider that in the early 1990s, there were a maximum 7,500 tigers in the wild. In the last 20 years, we’ve cut the creature’s population by about half.

Though depleted habitat is partially to blame for the tiger’s situation, Eastern traditional medicine practices are the bigger culprit. The black market for products derived of tiger parts is especially lucrative in China, where an expanding middle class can afford tiger-based delicacies and remedies. The Environmental Investigation Agency estimates that at least one tiger is killed daily for this market—even pregnant tigers.

This is the Year of the Tiger, according to the Chinese Zodiac. By the next Year of the Tiger in 2022, there may not be any tigers left in the wild.

“[M]an is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself. … I think we’re challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”
—Rachel Carson

* Note: Quotations are pliable, too. I couldn’t verify this one, but it’s most often attributed to Twain. Yet Twain was actually riffing on John Adams, the originator (supposedly) of “Facts are stubborn things.”

[Photo above by Craig Kasnoff.]