News Tiger Beer is pouring US$6 million into World Wide Fund for Nature efforts to increase numbers of the world's tigers raises strong hopes for the endangered big cats.
Mike Baltzer, leader of WWF's Tigers Alive initiative says there were 100,000 tigers in the wild a century ago but only 3890 as of last year - a figure Tiger Beer has highlighted as part of their efforts to raise awareness of the plight of the tiger.
Tiger Beer's involvement, over the next six years, comes after an increase in tiger numbers was recorded for the first time last year (up from 3200 in 2010). World Wide Fund for Nature is now pursuing a goal called Tx2 - a global commitment by governments of the 13 tiger range countries to double world tiger numbers to 6000-plus by 2022, the next Year Of The Tiger on the Chinese calendar.
"The Tx2 goal is the best chance we have to secure the future of wild tigers but we are running out of time. If we do not take bold and collective actions now, wild tigers may not have a second chance," says Baltzer.
The Tiger Beer funding, US$1m per year for six years, will be aimed towards practical help for conserving and improving tiger numbers but also adopts new approaches.
Global Director for Tiger Beer, Mie-Leng Wong, says tigers have lost 93 per cent of their range and the company wanted to "use our global scale and creativity to raise awareness of the issue as we partner WWF in their bid to double tiger numbers."
The creativity is encapsulated in the use of technology and art to help raise that awareness: "We have brought together six artists from six different countries to create unique pieces of artwork to symbolise the plight of the tiger," she says.
Using Tiger Art Intelligence, a creative digital mechanism built on artificial intelligence principles, members of the public can go to 3890tigers.com to virtually collaborate with the artists and add their versions of the artwork - symbolising their pledge to fight the illegal tiger trade. The aim is for this personalised artwork to be viewed and shared on #3890tigers to raise global awareness.
"This campaign with artists gives each of us the power to lend our voice to tigers," says Baltzer. "Each portrait created echoes the message that illegal tiger trade needs to stop immediately."
For the first time in 84 years, Tiger Beer will also remove the iconic tiger from the brand's logo on selected packaging to raise public awareness of the shocking population decline and inspire collective action.
The approach is designed not only to raise numbers but to prevent other tigers from suffering the fate of the South China tiger - one of six tiger sub-species. It is now termed "functionally extinct" as none has been seen in the wild for 25 years. The last survivors are in zoos though one project in South Africa could see some returned to the wild.
The South China population was estimated to be 4000 in the 1950s and World Wide Fund for Nature says thousands were hunted as pests. The Chinese government banned hunting in 1979 but by 1996, numbers were estimated at 30-80 individuals.
However, conservationists were delighted with the discovery of breeding tigers in the wild two months ago. That find occurred in deepest Thailand in March and involved the critically endangered sub-species, the Indochinese tiger, whose numbers in the wild have been estimated to be only 220-350.
In late March, camera traps set in the jungle in eastern Thailand, near the Cambodian border, showed six cubs born to four mothers in a small breeding population - the first signs the Indochinese tiger might be able to mount a comeback.
World Wide Fund for Nature successes in the fight to increase tiger numbers include:
• Nepal becoming the first county to achieve zero poaching in 2013
• Camera trap footage shows tigers are returning to north-east China
• India Russia, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh have all carried out tiger surveys, a crucial step in monitoring numbers
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