Richmond premiership stars Nick Vlastuin and Toby Nankervis travelled to India last Friday as part of the Tigers’ official conservation partnership with WWF-Australia.
Since the Richmond Football Club was founded in 1885, the population of wild tigers has plummeted by about 95%, leaving less than 4,000 currently in the wild.
Vlastuin and Nankervis along with a team of tiger conservation experts will visit the State of Madhya Pradesh in central India which according to the 2018 national tiger census is home to 526 tigers.
The tigers are distributed across a network of national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and six Tiger Reserves. The Richmond players will go on drives through both the Pench and Kanha Tiger Reserves.
WWF Human Tiger Conflict and Landscapes Lead, Dr Ashley Brooks, who will be on the trip, said that the Reserves were a great place to take the Richmond tiger ambassadors.
“It will be a chance to see not only a tiger in the wild, but also to show what conservation success looks like,” he added.
“India has very well managed Tiger Reserves and a healthy tiger tourism industry as a result. Unfortunately, many of the other tiger range countries lag far behind this, and even basic management and patrolling of national parks is still lacking in those countries.
“The players will get great perspective on tiger status and management in the wild and see the outcome of long-term concerted efforts on the ground in India – not only with the basics of species protection, but more importantly with building local community support for it.”
The trip to Central Indian Tiger Reserves complements a 2018 trip to Sumatra which gave Vlastuin and teammate Jack Graham a sense of the Indonesian tiger conservation climate.
To donate to WWF visit https://donate.wwf.org.au/adopt/tiger/wwf-richmond-football-club
