A three-day conference opens Wednesday in Thailand, hosting officials from 13 Asian countries in hopes of figuring out ways to protect the region’s dwindling tiger population.

The Year of the Tiger officially begins Feb. 14, according to the Chinese lunar calendar, but it’s already under way for conservationists trying to save the big cats from extinction.

A three-day conference opens Wednesday in Thailand, hosting officials from 13 Asian countries in hopes of figuring out ways to protect the region’s dwindling tiger population. Wild tigers are dying out virtually everywhere they still live, but the crisis is worst in Southeast Asia, says the WWF, largely because tiger bones are in high demand for Chinese medicine and because deforestation is whittling away their habitat. The region’s tiger population has fallen from 1,200 in 1998 to about 350 today, and conservationists say governments must step in and do something. 

Many are in an uproar over a new plan proposed by Indonesia: renting out tigers to millionaires. The country only has 400 Sumatran tigers left, and says rentable tigers could curb illegal hunting and trade in the endangered animals. “There are many orders from rich people who want them, who feel if they own a tiger they are a big shot,” explains one Indonesian official. “We have to take concrete steps to protect these animals.” Tiger rentals would cost $107,000, and would include three monthly checkups by vets and other officials, but critics say it’s just a distraction. “It shows the government is not serious about addressing the real issues threatening Sumatran tigers,” says a Greenpeace forest campaigner. “They need to stop issuing forest concessions [to logging companies].”

Sources: Agence France-Presse, MSNBC

Hammerheads are among hundreds of species found in Palau's waters

The tiny Pacific island nation of Palau plans to create the world’s first “shark sanctuary” by banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters, President Johnson Toribiong will announce Friday at the U.N. General Assembly.

While Palau itself is small, with a total land area of about 190 square miles, its islands are spread out over roughly 240,000 square miles of ocean, meaning its ban will be a boon for more than 130 species of sharks facing extinction in the Pacific.

Conservationists are praising the move, citing the voracious demand for shark-fin soup and rapidly declining shark numbers as proof such protection is needed. Like wolves on land, sharks are seen as a “keystone predator” in many ocean ecosystems since they help control many other species’ population sizes. “Palau has basically raised the bar for the rest of the world for shark conservation,” says the director of global shark conservation for the Pew Environment Group. Toribiong also plans to call for a global halt to shark “finning” (killing sharks just for their fins, the main ingredient in a popular Chinese soup), but his own country’s ban may already be hard enough to enforce – there will only be one boat to patrol the entire sanctuary.

Sources: Associated Press, BBC News, New York Times)