India PM hails rise in number of wild tigers

India's tiger population has reached over 3,000 since a conservation programme was started 50 years ago.Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the milestone on Sunday during a speech close to several of India's major tiger reserves in the southern city of Mysuru.

India's tiger population - believed to be 3,167 - accounts for more than 75% of the world’s wild tiger population, it is estimated.Modi also launched the International Big Cats Alliance that he said it will focus on the protection and conservation of seven big cat species, namely, the tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, puma, jaguar and cheetah.

Project Tiger began in 1973 after a census of the big cats found India’s tigers were fast going extinct through habitat loss, unregulated sport hunting, increased poaching and retaliatory killing by people.