January 28, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - International organizations must pay a much greater attention before the world’s tiger population drops to even lower levels than what it is today. According to World Wildlife Fund for Nature, this largest living wild cat specie is on the brink of total extinction within the next 12 years.

 

Studies show the tiger population in five of the Southeast Asian countries’ forests mainly in the vicinity of the Mekong River has dropped by 70 percent to 350 in the last 12 years. Once upon a time tigers roamed in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Tiger population experienced a major drop by 1998 to just 1200 and today there are only 350 of them left.

 

'Decisive action must be taken to ensure this iconic sub-species does not reach the point of no return,' said Nick Cox, coordinator of the WWF Greater Mekong Tiger Program told journalists. Based on the Chinese calendar 2010 is considered a tiger year. 'There is a potential for tiger populations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to become locally extinct by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022, if we don't step up actions to protect them,' Cox said.

 

In Thailand, a major conference is being held to discuss issues such as deforestation, urbanization and poaching that pose gravest dangers to tigers. Also in Russia an important summit to be hosted by the Prime Minister Vladmir Putin would be held in Vladivostok next September. Russia’s far east is home to Siberian tigers. The world's tiger population has dropped from 100,000 a century ago to just 3,200 today. 

 

Tiger-range countries are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

 

Last month a group of Russian scientists traveled to Tehran to set up a program with their Iranian counterparts to exchange and reintroduce Caspian tigers and Asiatic cheetahs that at one time roamed the region between southern Russia to central Iran.