Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society measure tiger footprints in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, one of the world’s largest protected forests.

TIGERS in Myanmar are still threatened by human pressure, and more effort is needed to stop poachers from targeting the big cats, especially in Kachin State’s Hukaung Valley, said Dr Alan Rabinowitz, president of New York-based conservation group Panthera.

Hukaung Valley is at the centre of the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, established by the government in 2001 as the country’s biggest wildlife reserve. In 2004 it was expanded from 2500 to 8452 square miles, making it one of the biggest protected forests in the world.

“The number of tigers there has gone down,” Dr Rabinowitz told The Myanmar Times during his visit to Myanmar from August 3 to 7. “When I first went to [Hukaung Valley] in 1999 there were lots of tiger signs. Now there are not so many anymore.”

“The Forestry Department and others working in Hukaung are working very hard. Many other animals are coming back under their protection, like sambar deer, some birds and a lot of other wildlife, but tiger numbers are going down. That’s something we need to work harder on. Otherwise, soon Myanmar will have no tigers,” he said.

Dr Rabinowitz said the Hukaung Valley was an ideal place for a tiger reserve because it is very big and beautiful, but he added: “There are people who are poaching a lot of tigers there and sending their parts over to China.”

“There are scientific techniques to measure the population density of tigers. We use camera traps, we do occupancy surveys, we look for animal tracks, we collect faeces for DNA tests.

“We don’t know the exact population of tigers in Hukaung Valley, but from these techniques we know there are fewer than before. The situation is much worse, but there are still tigers in there. We have to find out how many,” said Dr Rabinowitz.

Despite the decline in tiger numbers, Mr Colin Poole, the Asia program director of the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which also works in the reserve, said the Myanmar government was doing good work to protect wildlife in the area.

“We have seen lots of improvements in the area. The population of deer, which are prey for the tigers, is recovering. But the immediate priority is stopping the hunting of tigers. The government needs help in locating poachers and stopping them,” he said.

He said the poachers were not locals “looking for the dinner” but rather professionals who were killing animals to sell their parts to the Chinese medicine trade.

Dr Rabinowitz agreed that poaching was the biggest of the three main dangers facing tigers in the reserve.

Other threats include habitat loss and reduction of food sources.

“There is a problem with cutting down the forests where the tigers live, but it looks like we can control that in Hukaung, which has a lot of good tiger habitat,” he said.

The second problem is with people killing food that tigers eat, such as sambar and wild pigs, but under the protection of the Forestry Department and other conservationists, the numbers of these animals have been bouncing back in recent years.

“So the biggest problem is with certain people who kill the tigers and sell their parts to traders, who take them over the border into China to sell for medicinal purposes. We need to find the people who are poaching tigers,” Dr Rabinowitz said.

“It’s great that Myanmar has protected the Hukaung Valley. But we need help from government to make sure that a buffer area around the valley also gets protection. This would also help us save lots of other animals, including those that provide tigers with food,” he said.

He said it would be difficult to stop the poaching of tigers without taking steps to improve the welfare of communities located within the boundaries of the wildlife sanctuary.

“There is still plenty of land in the Hukaung Valley for people. All the villagers agreed with the establishment of the sanctuary. We’re asking the government to help us balance the needs of the local people with the need to protect the animals in the valley,” he said.

Dr Rabinowitz said the main aim of his trip to Myanmar earlier this month was to evaluate the progress of efforts to protect the Hukaung Valley.

“Every year I meet with officials from the Ministry of Forestry to talk about what progress is being made in Hukaung and what the problems are, because many things are going well and some things are not going so good. We especially need their help in stopping poaching in the area,” he said.