A project to protect endangered tigers in Thailand’s Khao Yai national park is arming 28 rangers with M-16s and training them to do everything from setting up remote infrared cameras that record wildlife to disarming poachers. The project, organized by two U.S.-based groups, the World Conservation Society and WildAid, and funded in part by the U.S. government, also aims to educate the local community about the importance of wildlife. Animal populations in the park have declined markedly in recent years, and only a dozen or fewer tigers remain in the 846-square-mile area. Meanwhile, worries about the wild population of the Siberian tiger in Russia are causing conservationists and Russian authorities to prosecute poachers and educate locals with renewed vigor.
