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  PlanetArk 15 Dec 06
Fast Breeding Keeps Tiger Numbers Steady
Story by Ed Stoddard

DALLAS - They may be the biggest cats in the world but tigers are apparently prolific breeders -- if they have enough to eat.

The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society said on Thursday that a nine-year study in India's Nagarahole National Park found that despite poaching, migration and natural mortality, tiger numbers there remained fairly robust.

"This study shows that even well-protected wild tiger populations have naturally high rates of annual losses, and yet do fine because of their high reproductive rates," said WCS researcher Dr. Ullas Karanth, lead author of the study.

WCS said tigers can produce three or four cubs per litter every two to three years. Relative abundance of prey was cited as a key factor in maintaining feline fertility.

"They are prolific but there is a good reason and that's because there is plenty to eat there," Jim Nichols, a co-author of the study who is a population ecologist with the US Geological Survey, told Reuters. The results of the study are published in the latest issue of the journal Ecology.

It found that over the nine-year period the park lost around a quarter of its tigers annually to emigration, natural mortality or poaching outside of the park.

Yet researchers estimated that the numbers remained fairly high in the roughly 640-square-km (247-sq-mile) park -- with some variation -- at around 60 animals. The research team made use of remote cameras to monitor the population and identify individual animals.

Nichols said the study's findings showed there was still hope for tigers who are critically endangered in the face of habitat loss, poaching, and the fact that poor rural people don't always take kindly to living next to man-eaters.

"There is hope for tigers provided there is the political and social will to protect their habitat and prey species," Nichols told Reuters by phone.

Nagarahole's tigers are also helped by the very high quality of their habitat and the fact that natural corridors link the park to other reserves, the study said.
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