Wildlife

World's wild tiger count rises

The world's count of wild tigers roaming forests from Russia to Vietnam has gone up for the first time in more than a century, with 3 890 counted by conservation groups and national governments in the latest global census, wildlife conservation groups said on Monday.

The tally marks a turnaround from the last worldwide estimate in 2010, when the number of tigers in the wild hit an all-time low of about 3 200, according to the World Wildlife Fund and the Global Tiger Forum.

India alone holds more than half of the world's tigers, with 2 226 tigers roaming reserves across the country, from the southern tip of Kerala state to the eastern swamps in West Bengal, according to its last count in 2014.

But while experts said the news was cause for celebration, they stopped short of saying the number of tigers itself was actually rising. In other words, it may just be that experts are aware of more tigers, thanks to better survey methods and more areas being surveyed.

Still, this is the first time tiger counts are increasing since 1900, when there were more than 100 000 tigers in the wild.