"It's the Year of the Tiger, and a new population assessment offers some hope for the endangered species.

An estimated 3,726 to 5,578 tigers currently live in the wild worldwide — up 40% from 2015, according to a new tiger assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

But much of the increase is because of improvements in monitoring the animals.

"A fairly significant chunk of that 40% increase is explained by the fact that we're better at counting them, that many governments in particular have really sort of moved heaven and earth to do massive scale surveys," Luke Hunter, executive director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) big cat program, told NPR."

Shauneen Miranda reports for NPR July 23, 2022. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"Can A Country Have Too Many Tigers? Nepal Is About To Find Out" (Mongabay) [3]