The number of tigers has fallen from 3,000 to 500 in the last 50 years |
Conservationists have attacked a Malaysian plan to set up a tiger park on the resort island of Penang. Wildlife groups say the park would violate the government's pledge to double the population of wild tigers. Penang's government recently proposed creating a 100 acre (40 hectare) tiger park to attract tourists. Illegal hunting and destruction of the tigers' jungle habitat has reduced Malaysia's wild tiger population from 3,000 to 500 in the last 50 years. The Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers said the country already had 40 zoos and that maintaining them was posing a challenge to authorities. In a letter to the Penang government, the alliance said that tiger reserves in China similar to the Malaysian proposal were little more than farms to breed tigers. They have been implicated in the illegal trade in tiger parts, the alliance said. It also pointed to the expense of maintaining tigers in captivity. The group said the project would violate a federal government commitment to protect jungle corridors in order to double the wild tiger population to 1,000 by 2020. |