SUMATRAN tigers are running out of places to live. Their population fell by 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2012, and the survivors live in shrinking forests.

Fell by …percent from year 1 to year2  百分比下降的说法

“We’re really at a tipping point,” says Matthew Luskin at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore

at a tipping point 临界点，引爆点

The Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) only lives on Sumatra, Indonesia. It is critically endangered.

Crtically endangered 严重地濒临灭绝的，另外濒临灭绝的物种英文是endangered species

Luskin and his colleagues tracked tigers there using cameras to estimate how many are left. They focused on females able to breed. Populations with at least 25 breeding females are best, to avoid inbreeding.

There are now only two such viable populations, down from the 12 that were thought to have existed 70 years ago (Nature Communications, doi.org/cg2t).

The decline is driven by rapid loss of habitat. Indonesia has the fastest deforestation rate in any country: it lost 37 percent of its primary forest between 2000 and 2012.

deforestation rate 砍伐率

In the past 20 years, there has been a big effort to save the tigers. On one measure, it has worked. Tiger population density rose 4.9 percent annually between 2000 and 2012.

 rise … percent from/between year 1 to year 2 百分比上升的用法

But “while anti-poaching efforts have been successful”, says Luskin, “at the same time, so much forest has been lost that it has offset those commendable conservation gains”.

We must protect the two viable populations, says Joe Walston at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York. Tigers there could ultimately restore other populations. “This is a very clear call to arms.”

Viable 有望成功的

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