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By Y.P. Rajesh
BANGALORE, India - A shortage of prey is a bigger factor behind the world's dwindling tiger population than poaching, a leading expert on the animals said on Thursday. "The decline of the tiger that we see is actually primarily driven by the loss of prey base rather than direct killing of tigers," said Ullas K. Karanth, a conservationist and zoologist with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). 
The number of tigers in the world has dropped 95 percent in the last century, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates.
"Tiger killing does have an impact in that it acts like driving the last nail
into the coffin," Karanth, head of the WCS's India programme, told Reuters.
"But overall, the big picture of tiger decline is actually due to loss of prey
base."
Karanth said he and his colleagues arrived at this conclusion through extensive
studies since 1994 in tiger habitats around the world.
Karanth's findings are to be included in a book he has co-authored with Bradley
M. Stith of the WCS. Titled
But experts have warned the tiger population is shrinking fast because of poaching and loss of habitat. This year, to coincide with the Chinese "Year of the Tiger" , leading international wildlife groups have stepped up conservation efforts to protect the felines. Karanth said that he and Stith developed a demographic model of "typical" wild tiger populations that now survive in Asia.
"The model simulates how a typical wild tiger population would function, how it would be affected by poaching and how it would be affected by loss of prey," he said. "What we found was, when the prey density drops, reproduction of tigers goes down drastically," Karanth added. "That is because of lower survival rates of cubs, and because each female tiger needs a large area to raise her stock. The number of breeding females that can hold to a given area comes down. Otherwise, the tiger is a very productive species." Tigers start breeding as early as the age of three, Karanth said. "If you look at the hunting records of the last century, there were huge hauls of tigers but the population still managed to bounce back."
The conservationist said the tiger's prey base was shrinking because of hunting by residents living around forests and protected parks. According to the WWF, the greatest threats to tigers came from human encroachment on their habitats, poaching and illegal trade in tigers and tiger body parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine. "Animals are being captured stealthily by snaring and other methods. So, despite the forests being intact...plenty of habitat being available, they are empty of prey, hence empty of tigers." Karanth said similar conclusions were being made by experts working in the Russian Far East and Southeast Asia. He said the findings imply a change in conservation strategies presently being pursued. "To say that a huge number of tigers are being killed for their bones and so they will be extinct soon is completely misleading and alarmist." Karanth said the problem of the poaching of tiger prey species needed to be addressed. "This means you need to secure areas where breeding populations can live and take anti-poaching measures to protect the prey base."
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