Vegetarian Star

Russia’s Prime Minster Vladimir Putin is known as a big cat lover. He’s recently organized a five day International Forum on Tiger Conservation that commenced on Sunday in St. Petersburg, Russia and involves leaders in conservation trying to solve the problem of saving tigers before they become extinct.

The conference will end with the goal of both saving tigers and increasing their numbers by the year 2022 by getting 13 countries with tiger populations to sign the St. Petersburg Declaration–an affirmation that they will work towards these goals.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, tigers could become extinct by that same year. A century ago, there were 100,000 tigers. Today, a mere 3,200 exist in the wild, due to poaching and destruction of habitat. Putin’s country of Russia is the only one to see its population of tigers increase since the 1950s. Russia has also already taken steps in tiger conservation, adopting a ban on Korean Pine logging, which helps preserve the Amur tiger habitat.

Tiger conservation is especially challenging because tigers cover a large area of habitat, many of which crosses national borders, making it tough to convince every country to set rules aside.

The cost of the initial phase of the program is $350 million, which would pay for poaching control, monitoring populations and creating reserves.

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