Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
The Malaysian tiger population (part of the Indochinese sub species) has a small but pretty stable population of tigers of between 250 and 340.
Unfortunately there does not seem to have been any increase. Having set a target of 1000 members in 2020 back in 2008, their efforts appear to have failed. Indeed some sources suggest that this may be a significant over estimate now.
China is a country which has done very poorly when it comes to the tiger. Having a great deal of respect for the tiger – with it woven throughout its early stories, and having played host to 4 of the tiger subspecies ( South china tiger, Amur tiger, indochinese tiger and the bengal tiger). Of these the south china tiger is almost certainly extinct having not been seen for decades, the Indochinese tiger is also extinct, the Bengal tiger has been confirmed in a part of Tibet – though numbers are unknown) and the amur tiger which live along the border between russia and china – perhaps 20 live in china.
As such it seems far to big a stretch to suggest that China has succeeded in doubling the wild tiger population.
I have only been lucky enough to hear wolves howl once in the wild, on the edge of the Sierra de Culebra in Spain (I have also heard them from a zoo). While it is reasonably common to hear a wolf howling in the wild, seeing it happen is far rarer.
A wolf howl is an eerie sound, and certainly lives up to its claims of being spine tingling. I do not consider it an aggressive sound, and certainly it is not meant as one – wolves howl as a way to spread out, and avoid having to fight. In other words, howls are for other wolves and are not intended to scare humans.
Now, I fully understand that as a farmer these noises can be more alarming. However, it has been clearly shown that with relatively simple processes wolf predation can be reduced to near zero (large dogs to live with the sheep, and bringing the sheep near the farm house at night.
Wolf howls are very useful for wolf researchers as it allows them to document the animals without changing their behaviour by getting too close. European wolves tend to howl less than American wolves as there is more history of wolf hunting here. Still, these howls do occur in Europe, and as they recover these nocturnal noises will spread and become more common once again.
This wolf happened to howl right next to a camera trap, hence the footage. If you watch (or listen) right to the end, you can hear the pack answer. I know for most people the sound of wolves howling is thought to be scary (this is perpetuated by horror films), yet as this is essentially a long distance chat, or even there to stop violence, this fear should stop.
Beavers are well and truly back in Scotland. With a population of more than 1000 animals, they are having a big impact on the environment. Less welcome news was that 115 of these animals were killed under licence. Now a population of this size can probably cope with deaths at this level, but it hard to believe that in all these cases this was necessary. At this point, as the population is slowly growing, you would think that translocation would have been a better option. There have also been 31 beavers that were trapped and moved to official reintroduction projects in England and Wales.
Laos is not doing well with tigers. Back in 2010 the government estimated that 17 tigers lived in the country.
Unfortunately, with ridiculous numbers of snares there is a great deal of fear that all of the tigers and leopards have been lost from Laos.
As with other countries in the area, it is entirely possible that if the poaching is ended these animals will return.
Deforestation is rarely good for local communities. Having lived on the land often for hundreds or thousands of years, the deforested land is usually sold off. Furthermore it can no longer be used as a resource for food gathering – and often without the forest the rains are less reliable so local farm crops fail.
It is thought that as much as 70 million hectares could be lost if this goes through. This is 270,000 square miles an area the size of Morocco lost.
Even with the moratorium in place three logging leases have been given to Chinese companies.
What makes this threat even greater, is that some of this area that would be deforested lies in the peatland areas, which could mean the end of the peatlands and the release of billions of tonnes of carbon (these peatlands are thought to contain 30 billion tonnes of carbon
A total of 8591 square km of rainforest was lost last year (3317 square miles). Joined with changes that Jair Bolsonaro has made which make it easier for squatters to take ownership of the forest, if he wins a second term we are likely to see damage to the Amazon that it may never recover from.
Indonesia is a archipelago of islands. Once connected to the Asian mainland, animals were able to make their way along the peninsular. When sea levels rose in the ancient past they were marooned on the islands.
Once they were found on a few islands including Bali and Java. They are now only found Sumatra. Sumatra is thought to have 400 tigers in 2010. This is down from as many as 1000 back in 1978.
San diago zoo estimate the number remaining in the wild at 400-600, but I cannot find any reason for this higher band.
It is possible that the tiger population has increased a bit, but in certainly has not doubled.
El Nino are natural weather phenonium generally occurring between every 2 and 7 years. It would appear that as predicted, the El Nino is getting worse as a result of climate change.
This mass die off released carbon dioxide greater than the annual emissions of a country like the UK or Australia.
The fear is that this will become a common event as the planet warms.
The problem is that with this much carbon released, the Amazon as a whole was flipped from being a net absorber toa net emitter of carbon.
As with many of the other countries on this list, precise population numbers do not seem to be available. What is clear is that in 2010 the tiger population was thought to be in excess of 100. Their current population is around 177 ( the population grew by 50% over the last 2 years).
Rapid growth of the population appears to be possible thanks to an improvement in their habitats health.
Join as an ambassador supporter to
support this site, help save wildlife
and make friends & log in
