The Fund for the Tiger Annual Year End Newsletter December, 2002

Dear Online Friends:

I again hope this letter finds you all in good health during the Holiday Season. The Fund For The Tiger has now been operating for more than seven years, and I am pleased to be able to send out this report on the tiger conservation projects we are supporting.

India

We are pleased to help fund several projects of the aggressive and far reaching Wildlife Protection Society of India. Funding in 2002 and into next year will help support the following:

• To expand the WPSI Poaching and Trade Investigation Project. For example, in the past six months, the WPSI developed information and assisted enforcement authorities in the arrest of 29 wildlife criminals and investigated and documented the loss of 25 wild tigers due to poaching. This work continues throughout India.
   
• Our main focus in India the past few years has been to protect the tigers at Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve and we are now funding a full time wildlife conservationist. This gentleman has been working hard gathering information about poaching, wildlife trade, and also promoting tiger conservation awareness in the 77 villages in the proximity of Bandhvargarh.
   
• In September we funded a Wildlife Crime Workshop put on by the WPSI in  the town of Katni. Katni is the main railway center near Bandhavgarh and a notorious center for wildlife crime and trade in Central India.
   
• We continue to provide essential resources and equipment for anti-poaching work in and around Corbett Tiger Reserve, especially the care and maintenance of Sonakali, the elephant we helped donate to the area several years ago. Last week I received an email from Brijendra Singh confirming that, at the moment, things were good at Corbett.

Nepal

The political situation in Nepal remains highly unstable. As the Palace, the Politicians, and the Insurgents circle the train looking for a solution, we are committed to helping Nepal’s endangered animals in their increasingly vulnerable habitat.

In the Chitwan area, Nepal’s prime tiger habitat and a jewel in their national park system, the Royal Nepalese Army, for its own protection and efficacy, has reduced its guard posts from 32 to 12 and now to 6. In a one-year period from July 2001 to July 2002, 38 rhinos have been poached. In that same period over 50 poachers have been arrested and 11 killed in shootouts with the Army. Deterrence does work! Three of the arrested poachers were infamous wildlife traders and are now out on bail due to pressure from Kathmandu. In a five-week period from October 2002 eight more rhinos, one tiger, and one leopard have been killed.

• In light of the current state of affairs we have increased our offer to help with anti-poaching work, information gathering, and rewards as needed in the Chitwan area.
   
• Commencing December 1 of this year we are funding a new project aimed at wildlife trade in Kathmandu. There is no market in Nepal for endangered species products, be they tiger skins, tiger bones, leopard skins, or rhino horns. Kathmandu is a marketing hub on the route to extinction.
   
• The salary and expenses for two of Bhim Gurung’s associates who monitor his 32 ‘citizen rangers’ throughout the Terai are now paid by our Fund. A Department of National Parks and Wildlife official commended Bhim’s project as providing the best available data on tiger habitat continuity and gaps.
   
• We continue to fund an anti-poaching patrol in a critical corridor north of Royal SuklaPhanta Tiger Reserve in far western Nepal.
   
• This past summer we donated cameras, their set-ups, and a new GPS system so trackers can continue to monitor tigers in Chitwan. Current data indicates that, against all odds, they continue to do well.

Our funding in Nepal goes via the International Trust for Nature Conservation and is supervised by its Trustee, Dr. Charles McDougal.

Comments

Thanks again to Dr. John Mordes for helping us set up this new website
address that even I can remember -- www.thefundforthetiger.org . Dr. John thanks The Friends of Hemlock Gorge, a sister conservation group that hosted The Fund For The Tiger web site gratis for its first four years.

Any assistance in funding this work will be greatly appreciated.

Warm regards and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!.

Sincerely,

Brian K. Weirum
Chairman
The Fund For The Tiger

How to Help

If you can help in any way please send your contribution to The Fund For The Tiger at P. O. Box 2, Woodacre, California, 94973. Contributions are deductible for tax purposes within the limits of the law.

Page updated December 12, 2007

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