Environment
Can Vietnam preserve tigers with $49 million?
  • | VietnamNet | September 09, 2011 05:27 PM

The Department of Biodiversity Conservation under the General Department of Environment is building up the project on doubling wild tigers in Vietnam within 10 years. However, doubts have been raised about the feasibility of the project.

The dream…

Institutions give different figures about the numbers of tigers left in the wild. The International Fund for Nature Protection of Vietnam, there are about 30-60 tigers. Meanwhile, the Education for Nature-Vietnam (ENV) gives a more pessimistic figure.

“Vietnam now has less than 30 tiger individuals living in the wild. They are in some national parks and sanctuaries, mostly in the border areas and the provinces in the central region,” said Tran Viet Hung from ENV.

It is estimated that the total expenses needed to grow a tiger individual to adulthood is 250 times higher than catching a tiger from the wild. Therefore, tigers in the wild have still been hunted.

Dr Pham Binh Quyen from the Vietnam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment (VACNE), said that he can see the problems in all the places where tiger conservation centres are to be set up. He is afraid that in the places, businesses and tourism activities would dominate the tiger conservation activities.

It is really very difficult to retain the current number of tigers, and it will be even more difficult to double the number, experts say.

According to Dr Dang Huy Huynh from VACNE, in order to feed a tiger, it is necessary to ensure the stable natural food supply, no less than 50 animals a year for every tiger.

In order to satisfy the minimum requirement, every tiger needs no less than 40 hectares of special forest habitats, where different kinds of animals co-exist.

Besides the task of ensuring food supply, scientists will also have to think about how to maintain the reproduction among the tigers. Dr Le Xuan Canh from the
Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources said that the reproduction rate of tigers is lower than other animals in the wild. Also, in order to successfully help tigers reproduce, it is necessary to reckon up the number of female tigers among the surviving tigers.

The Soc Son’s model

Scientists believe that it would be better to multiply tigers by feeding tigers at farms, then release the tigers and let them go back to the forests. One of the scientists who advocates the solution is Professor Dr Dang Huy Huynh.

Ngo Ba Oanh, Director of the Soc Son district’s Centre for Wildlife Rescue in Hanoi, related that six years ago, two tigers, about one year old, were carried to the centre from a southern province. To date, the family of tigers has 12 members already.

Oanh said that female tigers can give birth at the age of four, and that after 10 years, the family of tigers would have much more members.

At present, every tiger consumes the volume of food worth VND780,000 (USD37.5) a day. Meanwhile, the mother tiger eats more, about VND1.1 million (USD52.8). If counting on other expenses, every tiger at the centre consumes one million dong a day.

As such, in order to breed a tiger within 10 years in the national programme for tiger conservation, the sum of money to be spent is about VND3.65 billion. If breeding 100 tigers at the same time, the sum of money would be VND365 billion (USD18.25 million).

However, Oanh hopes that the actual sum of money to be spent in reality would be lower, because tigers can be released to the semi-wild environment for 6-12 months, and then the forests, after breeding them for several months, while no need to breed tigers for 10 years as estimated.

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