Tamaraw Conservation Efforts Highlighted in the 1st World Wildlife Day Celebration

TADI NEWS FEED:

World Wildlife Day is an opportunity for the international community to celebrate the globe's wild plant and animal life while redoubling efforts to protect them. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) welcomes recent achievements to safeguard wildlife, laments the losses and looks toward a future in which people can truly live in harmony with nature.

The ‘Tams-2’ Project aims to double wild Tamaraw numbers from 300 to 600 by 2020. Owing to aggressive public and private sector efforts, Tamaraw numbers have jumped from 153 in 2002 to 345 by April 2013. Shown is a Tamaraw bull in Occidental Mindoro, the Philippines. (Gregg Yan / WWF) 

The United Nations General Assembly set aside March 3 to raise awareness of the intrinsic value of wildlife and its contributions to sustainable development and human well-being. The day, which marks the signing of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973, is also being used to underscore the need to fight wildlife crime.

WWF, FEU and DENR Forge Alliance to Save the Mindoro Tamaraws

TADI ALERT:

They're not just an AUV. They're more than a collegiate basketball team. They’re short, shy and fierce. But they're our country's pride.   They are the tamaraws (Bubalus mindorensis) of Mindoro, another proof of the Philippines' rich wildlife and biodiversity.  But while we are proud and happy that these animals still roam the island of Mindoro, we need to do something now as time is fast running out.

Largest of the Philippines’ native land animals, the tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis) is considered by the IUCN as a critically-endangered species.

Just over a century ago, an estimated 10,000 tamaraws grazed and bred throughout the island of Mindoro. But the population has taken severe blows – ranging from a crippling outbreak of Rinderpest in the 1930s to incessant land clearing and trophy hunting. Only about 300 of the wild dwarf buffalo remain – holding out atop the grassy slopes and forest patches of Mts. Iglit, Baco, Aruyan and Calavite in Mindoro.