International Tiger Day 2020
The day is additionally referred to as Global Tiger Day. As we know that the population of tiger across the globe dropped sharply since the beginning of the 20th century but the good news is that now their number is on the rise. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on 28 July released All India Tiger Estimation Report-2018 on the eve of Global Tiger Day and a poster on small wild cats of India.
International Tiger Day: History
International Tiger Day was established in 2010 at Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit in Russia to raise awareness about the decline of wild tiger numbers, leaving them in the brink of extinction and to encourage the work of Tiger conservation. In the Summit, a declaration was made that Governments of tiger populated countries had vowed to double the tiger population by 2020.
Several events every year are organised by animal organisations like WWF, IFAW, and the Smithsonian Institute.
Reasons behind the declining population of Tigers
Poaching and illegal trade: For traditional Chinese medicines, tigers face the problem of poaching as there is a demand for every part of the body of the tiger. In illegal wildlife trades, they keep high prices.
Habitat loss: Nowadays and with the increasing population forest are becoming less in numbers. Clearing of forests for several reasons like agriculture, industries, etc. made a loss of around 93% of the natural habitats of tigers.
Climate Change: With the rise of sea level due to climate change lead to wiping out of Sundarbans one of the habitats of Royal Bengal Tigers.
Several diseases are also the key factor. Several animals die and there is no way to ascertain the cause of their death. Certain diseases spread epidemic like Feline Panleucopania, tuberculosis, etc.
