14 DAY TRIAL // High officials in Germany have recently announced that the country is ready and willing to spend as much as $27 million (€19.74 million) on tiger conservation.
More precisely, Germany has offered to support a new green-oriented campaign rolled out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, for short).
This latest IUCN conservation program is expected to help the world's 13 tiger range states meet their goal of doubling the overall headcount of wild big cats belonging to said species by the year 2020, Mongabay tells us.
This goal was established back in 2010 during a summit that representative of tiger range states took part in, the same source details.
The $27 million that Germany has agreed to make available to the IUCN will be invested in a five-year initiative dubbed the Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Program.
The IUCN explains that the funds provided by the German government will be distributed among conservation groups and wildlife authorities in states that house tiger populations.
The money is to help these people protect tigers against poachers, and safeguard whatever natural habitats these big cats still have at their disposal. It could also serve to expand tiger habitat.
Of the states that are currently home to tigers, some of the ones that are likely to receive funds under this initiative are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam.
Presently, the IUCN considers tigers to be an endangered species. Thus, folks working with the organization say that, according to recent research, about 2,500 such big cats are left in the wild.
This represents a drop of 97% when compared to the wild tiger population documented just one century ago. Besides, it appears that there are fewer tigers in the wild than there are in zoos across the United States.
Like many other species, tigers run the risk of going extinct in the wild sometime in the not so distant future due to the fact that humans have destroyed a large portion of their habitat. What's more, these animals are hunted on a regular basis, and must also deal with prey decline and disease.