Leading tiger experts, wildlife conservation charities, and representatives of governments of countries that have wild tiger ranges are meeting in Nepal this week to begin a global dialogue about the threats facing tigers as the world prepares to mark the Year of the Tiger in 2010, WWF says in a news statement.

Photo © Vladimir Filonov / WWF-Canon

WWF and others are attending the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop, the first in a series before and during the Year of the Tiger, that brings together decisionmakers from tiger range countries, members of the World Bank's Global Tiger Initiative, NGOs and the world's leading tiger experts, the Switzerland-based conservation group said.

"They will discuss the specific actions required to halt the extinction of the tiger in the wild."

"Tiger populations are still in steep decline and some estimates predict that tigers could be extinct in the wild by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022."

"Wild tiger populations are at a tipping point," WWF said. "While many important successes have been gained by the global conservation community, tiger populations are still in steep decline and some estimates predict that tigers could be extinct in the wild by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022."

Photo © Michel Terrettaz / WWF-Canon

The Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop is hosted by the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Government of Nepal, and co-organized and co-sponsored by the CITES Secretariat, Global Tiger Forum, Global Tiger Initiative, Save The Tiger Fund, and the World Bank.

Photo © Martin Harvey / WWF-Canon

WWF hopes to secure major political commitments for tiger conservation, through the series of political negotiation meetings occurring throughout the Year of the Tiger and leading up to a final Heads of State Tiger Summit in September 2010.

Photo © Adam Oswell / WWF-Canon

Effective conservation of tigers can provide an umbrella for all biodiversity, according to the World Bank, which joined forces with conservation groups to launch the Tiger Conservation Initiative in 2008.

Tiger conservation is thus vital to the conservation of many other rare and threatened species, as well as to sustaining essential ecosystem-services that forests provide, such as watershed protection, soil conservation and carbon storage, the Bank says on its Web site.

Clearing of tropical rainforest for paper industry, palm oil and other plantations in, Sumatra, Indonesia

Photo © WWF-Germany/M. Radday

"Despite their ecological significance, tiger populations are in decline," the Bank adds.

"Tigers occupy only 7 percent of their historic range, and in the last decade their habitats have shrunk significantly. Within a century, wild tiger numbers have plunged from more than 100,000 to about 4,000 animals.

"Tigers have already disappeared from Central Asia, Java and Bali in Indonesia, and most of China.

"Habitat loss, combined with intense poaching of prey species and the illegal trade in tiger parts, has taken a severe toll, with entire populations eliminated from what were once considered secure reserves."

Indian tiger close-up, Bangkok Zoo, Thailand

Photo © Martin Harvey/WWF-Canon

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Major China-based producers and users of palm oil have committed support for sustainable palm oil, "an important boost for efforts to halt tropical deforestation," WWF reported today.

The public statement, made at the 2nd International Oil and Fats Summit in Beijing on July 9, committed the companies to "support the promotion, procurement and use of sustainable palm oil in China,'"as well as "support the production of sustainable palm oil through any investments in producing countries." (The full text of the statement is at the bottom of this page.)

China is the world's largest importer of palm oil, accounting for one third of all global trade.

"Increasing demand for palm oil, which is used in everything from soap to chocolate bars, is causing considerable damage to fragile rainforest environments, threatening endangered species like tigers, and contributing to global climate change," WWF said.

Convoluted rows of oil palms march across a plantation in aerial view in Malaysia.

NGS photo by James P. Blair

Palm oil is the most produced vegetable oil in the world, with about 37 million tonnes produced per year around the world, according to WWF.

Palm oil producers and buyers signing the statement of support for sustainable palm oil included Wilmar International, IOI Group, KLK Berhad, Kulim Malaysia Berhad, Asian Agri., Premier Foods and Unilever. Oxfam International, TransAsia Lawyers, and Solidaridad China have also signed the statement.

"Given the massive of volumes of palm oil now being purchased, any move China makes towards using sustainable palm oil will have a big influence on protecting tropical forest resources in South East Asia and other areas," said WWF-China Country Representative Dermot O'Gorman.

NGS photo of a vendor selling palm ooil in a market in the Democratic Republic of Congo by W. Robert Moore

WWF and Unilever helped set up the international Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004, with the aim of establishing global standards for sustainable palm oil production and promoting the use of products containing sustainable palm oil.

WWF-China first introduced sustainable palm oil to Chinese companies in 2004, and continues to encourage the country's buyers, producers, and traders to participate in RSPO, the Switzerland-based environmental organization said.

"Sustainable palm oil received a massive boost in November 2008 when Dr. Huo Jiangguo, President of China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Foodstuffs and Native Produce, attended the RSPO annual conference in Indonesia and announced that China supported the drive for more sustainable palm oil products."

"Industry in China acknowledges that sustainability is one of the key criteria of ensuring competence in the global market."

"Industry in China acknowledges that sustainability is one of the key criteria of ensuring competence in the global market," said Bian Zhenghu, vice president of the China Chamber of Commerce during his opening address to the forum. "The Roundtable encourages the entire industry chain to make a move towards sustainability, and also gives Chinese stakeholders a big opportunity to play a significant role achieving the aims of RSPO."

Statement of Support: Promotion of Sustainable Palm Oil in China

This Statement of Support is a non-legally binding expression of support by the signatories on the promotion of sustainable palm oil in China.

Recognizing that
• China is the largest consumer of palm oil which is an important and versatile raw material for both food and non-food products, including biofuel
• It is important that palm oil is produced in a sustainable manner as defined by the Principles and Criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)
• Certified sustainable palm oil is now available in commercial quantities

The signatories of this Statement of Support commit themselves to
• Support the promotion, procurement and use of sustainable palm oil in China.
• Support the production of sustainable palm oil through any investments in producing countries that are consistent with the principles for sustainable palm oil production, national laws and China's guidelines for sustainable agriculture.

Further reading:

Clearing Land for Biofuels Makes Global Warming Worse (National Geographic News)

Biofuels Could Do More Harm Than Good, UN Report Warns (National Geographic News)

The slippery business of palm oil (The Guardian)

Backers Don't Buy 'Friendly' Palm Oil (Wall Street Journal)

Once a Dream Fuel, Palm Oil May Be an Eco-Nightmare (New York Times)

How the palm oil industry is Cooking the Climate (Greenpeace)

Why Biofuels Are the Rainforest's Worst Enemy (Mother Jones blog)

Slow Sales Of Sustainable Palm Oil Threaten Tropical Forests (WWF press release)

Cruel Oil: How Palm Oil Harms Health, Rain Forests0 and Wildlife (Center for Science in the Public Interest)

The Thai Navy seized two tiger carcasses and 45 pangolins, and arrested eight traffickers who had planned to smuggle the animals across the Mekong River into Laos, TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, said today.

"Navy officers followed two cars carrying the traffickers in Ponpang village in the Rattana Wapi district of Nongkai Province on April 26, and made the arrests as they were attempting to transfer the slaughtered tigers and live pangolins to a boat," TRAFFIC said in a statement accompanying photos released to the media.

Eight people were arrested including a Vietnamese woman and her Thai husband. Several others in the boat fled upon sighting the navy officers.

Tigers Chopped in Half

The two tiger carcasses, chopped in half, and the 45 pangolins, two of which were dead, were found inside the two cars, the statement added.

The Navy and Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division have sent the tiger carcasses to Thailand's Department of National Parks for DNA testing.

"TRAFFIC lauds the Thai authorities for carrying out these DNA tests. Determining the origin of these tigers is crucial if authorities hope to end this tragic trade," said TRAFFIC Southeast Asia's Acting Director Chris R. Shepherd.

Photo courtesy Mekong Waterfront Guard & Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division (NRECD) Thailand.

This seizure is not the first case involving tigers being smuggled across this border, TRAFFIC added.

"In January 2008 the Thai Navy thwarted an attempt to smuggle six slaughtered tigers, five leopards and 275 live pangolins across the Thai-Laos border.

"In that incident, the tigers had also been found sliced in half, while the leopards had their organs removed."

This January, Thai police seized four tiger carcasses in the resort town of Hua Hin, TRAFFIC said.

"The dead tigers, weighing about 250 kilograms [550 pounds] had been decapitated and were found in a truck passing through Hua Hin in the Prachuap Kiri Khan province."

Police said the dead tigers were believed to have come from Malaysia and were being transported to China.

The following month, Thai authorities discovered the butchered carcasses of two tigers and a panther when they stopped a truck in the southern province of Pattani, TRAFFIC said.

TRAFFIC, a joint program of WWF and IUCN, has encouraged governments throughout Southeast Asia to work together to tackle the wildlife trade problem.

Trail of Butchered Tigers

"The trail of butchered tigers winds through many countries in Southeast Asia," Shepherd said. "Tracking down those who illegally kill and trade these tigers and putting them behind bars is a task countries cannot accomplish their own."

National Geographic News exposed the illegal wildlife trade in Myanmar in a grisly video report and photo gallery in February last year. The footage and photos were taken by wildlife photographer Karl Ammann, who has visited the region four times in the past 15 years, posing as a buyer.

In the town Möng La, on the border between Myanmar and China, which he visited in 2007, Ammann said, "There were cages stacked on top of each other with captured animals: bears, macaques, small primates, pangolins, rare birds, all kinds of reptiles, and tables filled with butchered animals with bullet holes through their heads and their throats cut. It's one of the worst scenes I've ever seen."

Watch Karl Ammann's video investigation, first webcast by National Geographic News in February last year:

Warning: Graphic Imagery

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 Related: Tiger and Wild Cat Parts on Open Sale in Myanmar

Sumatran Tiger Cubs on Exhibit at San Diego Zoo

San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park photo by Ken Bohn

Three Sumatran tiger cubs roll, romp and rumble in the tiger exhibit at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park this week.

The trio, born November last year, was only recently allowed outdoors for public viewing, the zoo said in the caption accompanying this picture. "They will be tussling (or sleeping) in the exhibit from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays."
 
The four-month-old balls of tumbling fur showed their distinct personalities within their first weeks of life, the statement added.

"Damai, a female whose name means peace in Indonesian, was the first to open her eyes and has an upside-down V above her nose and three separate markings above her right eye. Harimau Kayu, a male whose Indonesian name translates to tiger woods, is the noisiest and has a marking like a check mark ( v ) above his right eye. Kucing, a male whose name means cat in Indonesian, was the first to explore outside the den box. Now in their fourth month, Kucing is rivaling Harimau in noise production!"

The cubs were born to Delta, a 10-year-old female. Utan, an 18-year-old male, is their father. This is the second time the pair has bred successfully. In 2006 they produced three cubs that now live at the Topeka Zoo.

The Sumatran tiger is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Only between 300 and 400 Sumatran tigers are left in the wild on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, mostly in national parks, San Diego Zoo said. There are only 350 in managed care.

The primary threats to the Sumatran tiger are poaching, habitat destruction and elimination of prey.

Bronx Zoo Gorilla Gets Brain Scan

Dr. Stephanie B. James holds Fubo's breathing tube steady as he is transported to the Bobby Murcer Mobile MRI Unit.

Wildlife Conservation Society photo by Julie Larsen Maher

Dozens of wildlife veterinarians, zookeepers, and medical personnel from several institutions were on hand to administer a scan of the brain of Fubo, a 42-year-old silverback gorilla living in New York's Bronx Zoo.

Fubo recently suffered a seizure, prompting WCS health and curatorial staff to seek out a neurological diagnosis, the Wildlife Consewrvation Society (WCS) said in a statement. WCS manages the zoo.

Fubo is one of two adult males, or silverbacks, living in the Bronx Zoo's Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit, which houses one of the largest breeding groups of western lowland gorillas in North America (more than 20 individuals).

The Brain Tumor Foundation responded to WCS's request for assistance with Fubo by sending its mobile MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) facility and staff to the Bronx Zoo's campus, free of charge, WCS said.

"The gorilla was sedated for the two-hour procedure, placed into the MRI's magnetic tube for the scans (a snug fit for a patient with gorilla-sized shoulders), and returned to the Congo Gorilla Forest as planned."

Daniel Jusza (foreground), Operations Manager for the Bobby Murcer Mobile MRI Unit, examines Fubo's MRI scan with Technologist Daniel Genovese (middle) and WCS Veterinarian Dr. Jason Berg.

Wildlife Conservation Society photo by Julie Larsen Maher

"Veterinary staff has concluded that Fubo's condition is not treatable with surgery, so they will continue to treat the gorilla with medication in an effort to control his seizures and other clinical signs," WCS said.

"Thanks to the generosity of The Brain Tumor Foundation, we were able to perform an MRI of Fubo's brain and this gave us insights into the possible cause of his illness. The ability to use their mobile MRI unit allowed us to perform this procedure right here at the Bronx Zoo," said Dr. Paul P. Calle, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Zoological Health Program and a participant in the MRI procedure.

"These images have given us a better understanding of the possible causes of Fubo's problem and have helped to guide his care. It was a great opportunity to enlist the most progressive technology for the diagnosis of people with similar problems to our close relative the endangered gorilla. The procedure contributes to the knowledge of veterinary healthcare of gorillas and other primates which will help WCS's health care programs and those of all facilities that house and care for gorillas."

WCS veterinary staff and technicians from the Brain Tumor Foundation and other groups perform an MRI of a gorilla.

Wildlife Conservation Society photo by Julie Larsen Maher

The Brain Tumor Foundation's Mobile Unit recently embarked on the "Road to Early Detection," a national campaign that promotes the early detection of brain tumors. The Unit travels New York City and its five boroughs offering free brain scans to everyone, especially those who do not have medical services available to them. The Unit is named after Bobby Murcer, the professional baseball player and broadcaster who was an advocate for The Brain Tumor Foundation's "Road to Early Detection" campaign. Murcer succumbed to a brain tumor in July of 2008.

Watch this National Geographic video of two lowland gorillas in the wild facing off in a test of strength: