The tiger is ‘critically depleted’ across much of its indigenous range in Asia. However, conservation can help its survival and also make it recover in much of that indigenous range, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s first Green Status of Species Assessment report for Panthera tigris has found.
The Green Status complements the IUCN Red List by providing a tool for assessing the recovery of species and measuring their conservation success.
“In summary, the Tiger faces critical levels of depletion as a result of historical and ongoing human impacts. The species has suffered severe range contractions and population declines and is now Regionally Extinct or Critically Endangered in large parts of its indigenous range,” the Green Status Assessment justification by IUCN read.
However, despite this critical status, conservation efforts have been — and remain — essential in preventing further range loss and status deterioration, and in enabling population recoveries now underway in several areas, it added.
The IUCN commended the conservation efforts across Asia as having saved the tiger from going completely extinct.
“Conservation efforts have likely prevented further steep declines and range loss, averting regional extinction in six spatial units (seven in a worst-case scenario). Without these efforts, the species would today be Critically Endangered in all non-Extinct units, with a counterfactual Species Recovery Score of 5%,” it said.
Over the coming decade, conservation is expected to prevent further declines, stimulate limited range expansion, and improve the species' status in several spatial units, according to the IUCN.
It also added that in the long term, tigers could recover significantly: “If all plausible conservation actions were implemented at maximum effectiveness, Tigers could return to all spatial units within 100 years, with lower bound projections indicating absence from only seven units.”
The IUCN stressed that tigers continue to face numerous persistent and emerging threats that endanger both their survival and their prospects for recovery. These include habitat loss, transformation, and fragmentation, as well as human population growth, prey depletion, climate change, disease outbreaks, and political instability.
“These pressures jeopardise the species' survival and limit its recovery prospects. However, if conservation is sustained and intensified, threats can be mitigated, enabling long-term survival and substantial recovery, with at least seven units reaching Viable status even at the lower bound,” said the assessment.