For once it’s good to see some good news about tigers. Having been pushed to the point of extinction, the Amur tiger, seems to have made a remarkable recovery. The latest census of the tiger, which hides in an isolated region near the Chinese border, shows there are between 480 and 520 animals surviving in the wild.
In the 1940s the sub-species had nearly died out, with around 40 tigers left. Yesterday, Yuri Darman, the head of WWF Russia's far east office, said the tiger's comeback was good news. But he warned that the species remained critically endangered and was at imminent risk if China succeeded in lifting the global ban on tiger products at the Global Tiger Forum in Kathmandu. "The success of the tiger population is mostly the result of the tiger ban in China and the support of the Chinese government," said Mr Darman.
The tiger may have made a comeback but the Amur leopard is struggling to survive. There are only around 40 remaining.
