LOSS OF LAOS FINAL TIGER
A decade ago carnivore biologists identified a remote protected area in northern Laos, called Nam Et-Phou Louey, as the country's probable last haven for wild tigers. To formally test this supposition, researchers set up camera traps in 2013 and quickly confirmed two tigers' presence. But the success was short-lived: over their study's four-year course, they never saw those or any other tigers again. This result, reported last October in Global Ecology and Conservation, confirms that tigers are now functionally extinct in Laos. Habitat loss is partly to blame, but Macdonald, senior author and wildlife conservationist at Oxford University, says that the main driver is “the astonishing, corrosive tide of poaching." Tigers can thrive in human-dominated landscapes: India has the world's second-highest human population, but it has prioritized tiger conservation and now hosts two thirds of the planet's remaining wild tigers. Macdonald says the respective examples of India and Laos offer lessons for countries such as Thailand, which still has about 200 wild tigers; conserving habitat is critical but so is weeding out corruption, cracking down on poaching and reducing demand for big cat parts. “One way or another,” he adds, “people have to change.”
ORGANIZATIONS HELPING TIGERS:
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