People drove forest rangers into an iron cage and demanded the extermination of wild tigers.

The situation with tigers is dire not only in Russia but across the globe. The striped predator is being driven to extinction everywhere, with no refuge left from humankind. You, allies, already know about the problem in Russia — for several years we have been striving to restore tiger habitats, whose numbers do not exceed just a few hundred individuals across the entire country. But deforestation, habitat destruction, and recreational trophy hunting “for pleasure” all strike at the tigers, depriving them not only of the ability to live peacefully in their forest but even of the most basic chance to find food.

The same is true worldwide.

In September 2025, an incident occurred in the state of Karnataka — in the village of Bommalapura, located on the edge of Bandipur Reserve, a group of farmers forcibly locked seven forestry department employees in an iron cage. This cage was intended to trap tigers, but it was the rangers who ended up inside.

The villagers desperately declared that tigers had begun frequently attacking their livestock. They said that despite repeated complaints, the forestry department had failed to capture the dangerous predators and was slow to compensate farmers for the cattle they lost. As a result, in protest, the farmers resorted to this dramatic action — locking officials inside the very trap set for the tiger. Only after the department’s leadership promised to intensify tiger capture measures and compensate losses did the villagers release the hostages.

The situation, I must admit, is extremely dramatic. Similar things happen in our own country — residents demand retaliation against tigers, call for legalized shooting, and urge authorities to lift restrictions on killing the striped beast. Conflicts have already flared! Just last winter, several people and tigers were killed. Regional officials fuel the fire, also suggesting to legalize tiger hunting, even though the species is under federal protection as endangered.

Let me remind you: last winter, ministry staff placed a terrified dog into a cage in freezing cold, trying to lure a tiger with it. Locals, filming the trembling animal on camera, rescued the dog. The Ministry later claimed the dog was “specially trained and government property,” reminding people of liability for “theft.”

Doesn’t it sound familiar? Exactly the same as in India now — the authorities are unable, and unwilling, to act, while on the other side are angry villagers forced to face the problem “one on one.” On one hand, vigilantism is not an option, but on the other hand the problem is very real! A hungry tiger is a real threat to humans — there is no point in denying this.

Now I want to speak a little more about tigers, to reveal the depth of the problem.

Just a century ago, tigers inhabited vast territories of Asia — from the Far Eastern taiga to tropical jungles — and were relatively numerous. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were around 100,000 tigers in the wild. For comparison, the world’s human population was only about 1.6 billion. By the early 2000s, the picture had changed dramatically — tiger numbers catastrophically declined, dropping 96% in the last 100 years. That means only 4% of tigers remain compared to a century ago!

By 2010, only about 3,200 tigers were left in the wild, and many organizations began to work to save them. Millions of dollars were raised! As a result, with enormous effort, the population was brought up to around 3,900 individuals — think about it, THESE ARE ALL THE TIGERS LEFT ON THE PLANET.

Meanwhile, humanity has undergone a true “demographic explosion,” growing from 1.6 billion in 1900 to more than 8 billion by 2025. Naturally, such imbalance has increased competition with predators for land and resources! People need more and more, while animals are left with less and less.

Tigers have lost most of their domain: 93% of their historical range has vanished, and they have disappeared from many regions (the Middle East, Central Asia, the islands of Java and Bali, and others). Humans steadily colonized these lands for their own purposes. As a result, many of the remaining tigers are forced to live in close proximity to humans, on small protected “islands” surrounded by farmland and villages. For example, in one country with the largest tiger population, about 45% of tiger habitats overlap with lands where around 60 million people live.

In such conditions, avoiding conflict is nearly impossible.

Moreover, humans continue invading the last fragments of wilderness through hunting, poaching, deforestation, and fires. Land is taken for agriculture, industry, and expanding cities.

It has come to the point where even in protected areas, the remaining 4% of tigers lack food. As a result, predators come to humans searching for prey, attacking livestock. Conflicts with humans follow! In fact, predators approach villages out of desperation — they have no choice, when instead of jungles or taiga, they are surrounded by rice fields and settlements. There are no alternatives.

Just put yourself in a tiger’s place and ask: if you were a hungry predator, pushed into “reservations” of fragmented wilderness, unable to migrate between them, what would you do? Die of hunger or try to take something from humans to survive?

And so, conflicts only increase, and all the anger is vented on tigers, who are being exterminated to the very end. Wiping off the face of the Earth a unique biological species — and with it, millions of years of evolutionary history.

Interestingly, human actions and government responses are identical everywhere. Last year, it turned out many tigers bore old bullet wounds — villagers simply shoot at them. Elsewhere, enraged farmers kill tigers in revenge, luring them into pits or cages, then stoning them to death. Others poisoned cattle carcasses to bait tigers. In June 2025, a rare tigress with four cubs was found dead — the farmer had poisoned his cow’s carcass after the predator killed it. The tigress and all four cubs died after feeding.

And there is no control over this! As you see, even rangers can do nothing — in the end, they themselves were locked in cages as people demanded compensation. This demonstrates the extreme degree of crisis, which keeps worsening.

It must be understood: tigers NOWHERE TO GO. Historically, these predators require vast territories, but humans have taken nearly all suitable lands.

Urgent measures to protect tigers are truly needed. In our country, we can achieve change if we act.

At present, we propose two fully objective initiatives.

First — urgently designate all remaining wilderness areas as global Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET). The reserve system must change, giving animals zones of absolute protection, free from humans! Saving single species is pointless, as entire biological chains have already been destroyed. The problem can only be solved comprehensively.

We propose this option — concrete and understandable actions that can be implemented at the federal level.

Second — changing methods of tiger protection and creating an early warning system for conflicts. While TFET requires time, protecting tigers and people from conflict can be done immediately!

You can join our initiative at the link below.

Public Initiative

Let’s achieve change! And if elsewhere people and systems cannot act, maybe we can attempt it in our own country.

We fight for Life!

Support us.

© PAVEL PASHKOV