A look at what progress has been made since the 2010 International Tiger Forum in St Petersburg set out to double the wild tiger population by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger
This week, news emerged of nine arrests in South Africa in what appears to be a bust of an international criminal operation trafficking the parts of tigers and lions..
There have been significant shipments of lion parts in the past 10 years to South-East Asia and China where they are marketed as tiger, further exacerbating demand for the world’s most endangered big cats.
The killing of more than 50 lions on a South African farm last week has laid bare the reality of this officially sanctioned trade. Bloemfontein Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals followed up a complaint of two lions being kept in temporary containers found what was described as a “lion slaughterhouse"
The world’s remaining tigers are living under severe threat of extinction, having lost 93 per cent of their historical range and suffered a population crash of 95 per cent during the past century. The major threat to their continued existence is poaching to meet the high demand in Asia for their parts and derivatives