Brendan Moyle • Jul 25, 2016 •
The news this weekend included mention of the attacks on two women in China, in a tiger safari park. Tigers are very efficient predators. The Amur (Siberian) tiger for instance, can grow up to 250kg. It is the largest of the large cat species, and a very efficient predator. In Asia they have long killed people, in numbers that … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Jul 04, 2016 •
I’ve been in Asia of late, and finished up at the Conservation Asia conference. This isn’t just a place to present your own research, but also a place to learn more about what it happening elsewhere. I like to go to sessions I know little about. Especially the fields of conservation biology that tend to be neglected. So amphibians and … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Apr 24, 2014 •
Well as part of the last expedition to China we got up north. Very north. There was still snow on the ground even though it was early spring. This is one of the times when having a good relationship with the Chinese SFA matters. Got to se... Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 28, 2011 •
There are many phrases that cause me to wince. The oft-used ‘missing-link‘, beloved by newspaper headline writers, creationists and 1950s B-movie writers is one. Another that is stubbornly popular in conservation literature is the oft-repeated claim that trade will fuel demand for wildlife parts. This is typically used as a reason why trade in wildlife (or their parts) should not … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 24, 2010 •
Well, the Tiger Summit in St Petersburg has come up with a price tag of $350m to save the tiger. I wish I could be surprised that part of the solution to save the tiger is to spend even more money. I wish I could be surprised that we are starting to evaluate the success of our efforts to save … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 22, 2010 •
Associated Press released this story in the weekend. Wildlife group targets Myanmar-China tiger trade BANGKOK (AP) – Wildlife trafficking officials say they have reached a preliminary agreement with an ethnic minority group in Myanmar to close down markets where hundreds of poached tigers from across Asia are sold for use in purported medicines and aphrodisiacs in China. This is … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 19, 2010 •
In view of the Tiger Summit starting soon in St Petersburg, I thought a few pointers for reporters wanting to write stories on tigers might help 🙂 Okay, number 1. White tigers are not a subspecies of tiger. They are a genetic mutant that is thrown up in all subspecies from time-to-time. Siberian- or Amur- tigers, are not in fact, … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 18, 2010 •
The latest Tiger Summit is going to begin in St Petersburg on the 21st of November. This has been heralded as yet another last ditch attempt to prevent the extinction of tigers in the wild. There may be no animal that has received more conservation attention than the tiger, for little actual gain. The thing about tigers is that there … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 10, 2010 •
One of the side events to the CBD meeting in Nagoya was a tiger conservation event. I’m going to assume everyone knows by now that tigers are in deep, deep trouble (form a conservation perspective). Their wild population is now estimated to be about 3200 animals, where was a century ago it was an estimated 100,000 animals. The tiger conservation … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 04, 2010 •
While I’ve focused a lot on the poaching risks to tigers, the fact is that their small populations make them vulnerable to other risks as well. For instance, one of the tiger reserves I visited in the Hun Chun area of Jilin, had a grand population of two Siberian tigers. This was brought home recently when a wild Siberian tiger … Read More