EAZA Tiger Campaign 2002/4
Update on the campaign efforts in Colchester Zoo
Colchester Zoo raises over Ł40,000 for Tiger Campaign!Colchester Zoo's Tiger Campaign has now officially ended, with glowing results. The total fund amount is an amazing UKŁ40,125 (+/- €60,000) which is more than any other Zoo in Europe that has participated! The funds will go towards vital projects for the protection of Tigers in Russia and Colchester Zoo would like to thank the tremendous support of its visitors over the past two years.
Tigers are now one of the most endangered species on the planet with some species sadly already extinct. The money that has been raised by Colchester Zoo will provide much needed funds to protect existing tigers in the wild. This includes strengthening protection activities, educating and engaging local communities to actively participate in conservation, providing a tiger response team to intervene in situations where tiger-human conflicts could occur and radio collaring tigers to define predation rates.
Just recently scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and their Russian colleagues from the Sikhote-Alin reserve have fitted three wild Siberian tiger cubs under six weeks old with tiny radio-collars. The cubs, the youngest ever to be tracked by scientists, represent the third generation of radio-collared tigers for the project which has been monitoring Tigers in the Russian Far East for the past decade. The collars will give researchers crucial insights into the lives of tiger cubs and will provide knowledge of improving the survival and reproduction of this beautiful species.
"Through radio telemetry, we've learned a great deal about the needs of Siberian tigers, animals so elusive that few field researchers have seen them in their natural habitat," said John Goodrich, a WCS researcher and the head of the Siberian Tiger Project. "Now we can finally get some idea of what causes the deaths of tiger cubs, which suffer a mortality rate of nearly 50 percent in their first year; if we can somehow improve their chances, we can make a big difference in helping the population to grow."
