Earth Brigade Says: Climate Change Endangers Tigers!

Fewer than 600 Siberian, or Amur, tigers remain, and they like many other Tigers will most likely go extinct before the end of the century.

As a result of rising temperatures, forest fires are increasing by the year. The (UNEP) warned in its annual Frontiers report that wildfires are now more dangerous as they affect larger areas. Uncontrollable forest fires cause devastation to people, biodiversity and ecosystems. The smoke from such fires puts tigers In India and other wildlife at risk of suffocation as well.

Big cats prefer to live around water bodies for water security and access to prey animals. Increasing droughts have led to tigers, leopards and other predators moving out of forest areas and into villages searching for water. Home to half the world’s surviving tigers, India’s tiger population according to the 2022 Tiger Census is approximately 2500, down from 40,000 a century ago. The Sundarbans are home to the largest population of Bengal tigers in the world. Although teeming with rich biodiversity, rising sea levels and higher salt levels are killing the region’s Sundri trees, thus shrinking the tigers’ habitat and causing scarcity of fresh water.

This forces the tigers to higher grounds such as mountains in search of prey animals. Wildlife experts say tigers are being spotted more frequently in recent years at high altitudes in the country’s northeast and west. But lack of food will lower their population even faster than the decreased area of habitats. The mangrove forests of the Sunderbans are home to the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger. According to the report in the Journal Science of The Total Environment by Australian and Bangladeshi researchers, 70% of the land is just a few feet above sea level. The most recent study says that by 2060, the remaining tiger habitats in the region will be completely wiped out.

The World Wide Fund for Nature predicts that a sea level rise of 11 inches will lead to a decline in the number of tigers in the Sundarbans by about 96% within the next 20 -25 years!

To Learn More Email: Email: director@earthbrigadefoundation.org