Lost tiger population discovered in Bhutan mountains

[gateley]

A "lost" population of tigers has been filmed living in the Himalayas.

The discovery has stunned experts, as the tigers are living at a higher altitude than any others known and appear to be successfully breeding.

Their presence in the Bhutan highlands has been confirmed by footage taken by a BBC natural history camera crew.

Creating a nature reserve around the tigers could connect up fragmented populations across Asia, preventing the extinction of the world's biggest cat.
Tigers are known to live in the Himalayan foothills of Bhutan, though little is known about them, or how many there are.

However, leading tiger expert Dr Alan Rabinowitz, formerly of the World Conservation Society and now President of Panthera, a conservation organisation dedicated to safeguarding big cat species, suspected that tigers may also be living at higher altitude, following anecdotal reports by villagers suggesting that some were roaming as high as 4000m (13,000ft).

So, together with a BBC film crew, he decided to investigate by journeying to Bhutan to seek proof that such mountain tigers did indeed exist. /SNIP

Very cool videos and the rest of this interesting story at the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8998000/8998042.stm

[Geoff R. Casavant]

1. So cool.

I was fascinated to discover there were eight or ten different species of tiger, some of which are now extinct.

[riderinthestorm]

2. Hate to be a wet blanket on this good news, but is this because of global warming?

The tigers have migrated farther north up the mountain because they can? Because temps have ameliorated this far north and they have found a new haven?

I'll be interested to see if these are truly a new band of tigers or simply an old species that have discovered the more temperate climes of late, up north.