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https://www.livescience.com/animals/cats/kazakhstan-plants-tens-of-thousands-of-trees-in-giant-effort-to-reintroduce-tigers>
“Tigers will soon roam Kazakhstan for the first time in over 70 years as
conservationists undertake a gargantuan effort to restore part of their lost
habitat.
The last of Kazakhstan's Caspian tigers disappeared in the late 1940s, after
years of hunting, habitat loss and declines in prey numbers. Now, the Central
Asian country has an ambitious plan to reintroduce the world's largest cats to
their historic lands.
So far, two captive tigers (a male and a female) are already in Kazakhstan as
part of a breeding-and-release project, while the country is expecting its
first wild tigers to be transported from Russia in the first half of 2026.
However, for the program to be a success, the tigers need plenty of places to
live. That's where an enormous tree-planting project comes in.
Last year, the Kazakhstan tiger reintroduction program — led by the government
of Kazakhstan with support from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the United
Nations Development Programme — planted 37,000 seedlings and cuttings near a
giant lake in southeast Kazakhstan's South Balkhash region, where tigers used
to live, according to WWF Central Asia. This adds to the 50,000 seedlings
planted between 2021 to 2024.
Tree planting is a key part of Kazakhstan's massive ongoing greening
initiative. The country has planted around 1.4 billion trees since 2021, and
officials say they are on track to reach 2 billion trees by 2027.
In South Balkhash, newly planted trees serve as a foundation for recovering
ecosystems that sit alongside already-forested lands. The trees provide shelter
and water access, as well as food for the tiger's prey: hooved mammals
(ungulates) like boar and Bukhara deer (
Cervus elaphus bactrianus, also
called Bactrian deer).
"Already, wild ungulates have been seen foraging on the restored sites,
indicating that the ecosystem is beginning to function," a spokesperson for WWF
Central Asia told
Live Science in an email. "Each planted seedling is
therefore a direct contribution to the future of the tiger in Kazakhstan."”
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
