Northeast is best hope for tigers

China has approximately 50 or fewer tigers living in the wild but efforts to stabilize the population in the bleak northeast are starting to pay off, a conservationist said yesterday.

The population of tigers, which once roamed huge swathes of China, right up to the now-booming east coast, has collapsed due to habitat destruction and poaching for use in traditional medicine.

About 10 are still alive in Yunnan province, about 15 in the Tibet autonomous region, and 20 in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, said Xie Yan, China Country Program director of the Wildlife Conservation Society.