VETERINARY MEDICINE: Urbanization may hold key to tiger survival.

VETERINARY MEDICINE: Urbanization may hold key to tiger survival.Conservationists look at five human socioeconomic scenarios to better understand fate of endangered big cat.A new wildlife conservation society led study published in the journal Biological Conservation says the future of tigers in Asia is linked to the path of demographic transition -- for humans. The study marks the first-of-its-kind analysis that overlays human population scenarios with the fate of these endangered big cats. Prior to the 20th century, some experts estimate there were more than 100,000 tigers living in the wild; today that number is between 3000 -- 4000. At the same, over the last 150 years, the human population of Asia as grown from 790 million to over 4 billion, with dire consequences for tigers and other wildlife. But these trends are changing. The demographic transition is the process by which human populations peak and then go down. The researchers looked at different scenarios of economic, education, migration, and urbanization policy. In 2010, 57 million people lived in areas defined as "tiger conservation landscapes" that contained all of the world's remaining wild tigers. However, by 2100, depending on population trends, as few as 40 million people could be sharing space with tigers, or it could be as many as 106 million.