Tigers in Asia

Government officials and experts from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar and Nepal and the Worldwide Fund for Nature were seeking trans-border cooperation, conference delegates said.

At the turn of the century, there were an estimated 100,000 tigers in the wild. Now there are a maximum 7,000, the most common of which is Royal Bengal at around 5,000.

The Bali, Javan and Caspian tigers have all become extinct in the last 70 years. "The meeting will focus on how to conserve the tiger at a regional level," said Arun Rajauria, an official of the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC) which is hosting the meeting at Sauraha, near the Royal Chitaun National Park. The park, 150 km (90 miles) south of Kathmandu, is home to about 70 of the kingdom's estimated 120 Royal Bengal tigers.

The tiger is facing threat of extinction from poachers and habitat loss. KMTNC officials say a dead tiger is worth more than $100,000, its bones in especially high demand in East Asia for medicinal purposes.