The start of the three-day Milennium Tiger Conference in the Indian capital Delhi, has heard calls for increased international efforts to save the tiger from extinction.

Mike Wooldridge reports from the conference

Opening the conference the Indian Vice President, Krishnan Kant, said that if the tiger died, one of nature's most magnificent creations and a product of billions of years of evolution would have been snuffed out.

India is home to more than half the world's remaining population of tigers, but already, three of the eight sub-species of tigers have become extinct.

Illegal trade

Three of eight tiger species are already extinct

The conference coincides with the 25th anniversary of Project Tiger, which country's environment minister, Suresh Prabhu, said had been acclaimed as one of the best conservation projects of its kind in the world.

But, he said, it was now being hampered by poaching and illegal trading in tiger parts.

Anti-poaching operations were being stepped up, he said, but there was a need for new strategies to save the tiger and this included more international cooperation.

The vice president savaged imagery associated with the killing of tigers for sport.

Human depravity

Captive breeding is failing to stem the decline

A stuffed tiger head mounted on the wall of a mansion was, he said, a damning commentary on the insensitivity and depravity of human beings and the culture of consumerism.

Mr Prabhu said what was urgently required on the eve of the millennium was a new mental effort to conserve the tiger which was a symbol of global biodiversity.

He said children all over the world had grown up around images and stories about tigers.

India has recently increased the number of its tiger reserves from 23 to 25, but much of the poaching has been taking place outside the reserves.