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Pallone Receives Commitment from Wildlife Groups to Investigate the Sharp Decline in India's Wild Tiger Population

April 26, 2005

Washington, D.C. --- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Fisheries and Oceans and co-founder of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, today announced bipartisan efforts to examine the reasons behind a serious decline in India's wild tiger populations.

During a subcommittee hearing today on reauthorization of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the New Jersey congressman raised the issue of recent press stories about potential corruption and scandal in international efforts to conserve wild tigers in India and the revelation that tiger populations are much smaller than previously thought.

Pallone received commitments from both John Berry, Executive Director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which administers the Save the Tiger Fund, and Matt Hogan, Acting Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that they would investigate the problem, which they both characterized as serious, and report their results back to the Subcommittee.

"Virtually overnight, the status of the world's tiger populations and the protection of tiger habitats have become uncertain," Pallone said. "The tiger is a vital symbol for the nation of India and one of the most seriously endangered large mammal populations in the world. Clearly, current international conservation efforts are failing, and we need to find out why before there are no more tigers in India."

Pallone and U.S. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Fisheries and Oceans, also agreed to send a joint letter to the Indian Ambassador to the United States asking that India investigate the situation further and work with American funding agencies to find the reasons behind the recent decline in wild tiger populations and work to restore tiger habitat.

Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gand hi launched Project Tiger in 1973 to save India's tiger populations from extinction by creating 27 special game reserves. The project reportedly increased the wild tiger population from 1,827 in 1973 to around 4,000 in 1989. Since then, however, populations have plunged as poaching and poor management practices led to the animals' decline.

In 2000, Pallone traveled with President Bill Clinton to India, where Clinton visited the game reserve at Ranthambore in Rajasthan. The head of Ranthambore, Govind Sagar, has said that if action is not taken, no tigers would be left in the Reserve at the end of the decade, with serious impacts on the tourism industry. Poachers are most interested in tiger skeletons, which are sold for up to 300,000 rupees, the equivalent of $6881, on the black market.