Slashdot Mirror
Tiger Numbers Rise For First Time In a Century (nationalgeographic.com)
Brian Clark Howard, writing for National Geographic: At last -- some good news for tigers. Driven largely by conservation successes in India, Russia, and Nepal, the global population of tigers in the wild has shown a significant increase in the past few years, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports in a new survey. The report comes as national leaders meet in India to discuss next steps for saving the iconic -- and highly endangered -- species. The study estimates that there are now 3,890 wild tigers, up from 3,200 in 2010, when countries announced a historic commitment to double the population by 2022. Countries appear to be heading toward their goal, and this is the first time tiger numbers have been increasing globally in more than a hundred years. "We're positively surprised by the numbers, which validate what we thought has been happening thanks to conservation efforts," says Ginette Hemley, senior vice president for conservation at WWF.
Not everyone had Statistics in college, sadly... The last sample was from 2010, 6 years ago. At that time the population was 3,200. Now in 2016 there are 3,890. Obviously during that 6 year period, the numbers were on the rise. It's still the first time the numbers have gone up at a sampling point in a century (sadly we have to trust the headline on this since the writer of the article apparently skipped Journalism 101 and doesn't cite when the last time the population increase was).