The number of tigers spotted by hidden cameras in the core of Thailand’s biggest conservation area rose last year, while a rare sighting of a mother and her cubs has spread hope that the species is breeding in new areas.

Camera traps in Thungyai-Huai Kha Khaeng wildlife sanctuaries captured 120 tigers during an exercise that concluded in April 2023, up from 100 the previous year.

Somphot Duangchantrasiri, the head of Khao Nang Ram wildlife research station at the Department of National Parks, said the increase was a promising sign. “It shows we are going in the right direction but still we are alert, and still watching the situation,” he said. “If we stop what we are doing then the number could go down.”

In 2007, only 46 tigers were spotted in Thungyai-Huai Kha Khaeng wildlife sanctuaries, he said. Conservation work had taken years, he added: “Now we are starting to see the results.”

He attributed the growth in numbers to stronger patrolling to stop poaching, as well as efforts to recover the numbers of animals that tigers hunt as prey, such as sambar deer.

Thailand’s tiger population was thought to be between 148 and 189 in 2022. Most of country’s tigers live in Thungyai-Huai Kha Khaeng wildlife sanctuaries, the core area of the country’s Western Forest Complex. However, there are signs that tiger populations elsewhere may be recovering, too.

In December, the Department of National Parks released images from camera traps at Salak Phra wildlife sanctuary, in the south-east of the Western Forest Complex, showing a mother and her two cubs – the first time cubs have been spotted on camera in the area. Identification work by Panthera Thailand later found there were three cubs.

“This is a big news for us,” said Rattapan Pattanarangsan, the conservation programme manager at the NGO Panthera Thailand. Previously the location had attracted tigers that had been born in the core area of the forest and moved outwards, he said. “But now we are the source, we can produce tigers from our place. That means our place is safe enough, and has enough prey for the mothers to eat and breed.”

In 10 years of monitoring, conservationists had not detected cubs born in the area, according to Panthera Thailand, which estimated the animals were about eight months old.

According to the WWF, the global wild tiger populations may have reached 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century. The numbers have plummeted as their range has been cut by 95% due to poaching and habitat destruction.

In 2010, when the global population was estimated to be 3,200, 13 tiger-range countries, including Thailand, pledged to double the number of tigers by 2022.

Progress has been mixed, and there are now an estimated 5,574, according to the Global Tiger Forum. India and Nepal have doubled their tiger populations, and numbers remain stable and increasing in Bangladesh and Bhutan respectively. Russia’s population has increased, while China is also restoring numbers in some pockets, according to the forum.

Thailand is one of the few countries in south-east Asia to make progress in rebuilding its tiger population. The animal is at risk of extinction in neighbouring Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Rattapan said since anti-poaching work had been increased – including through the installation of poacher cameras, which in areas with phone signal can alert ranchers to poachers by sending a text message – this posed far less of a direct threat to tigers.

Conservationists say reductions in other human activities, such as livestock raising, commercial bamboo collection and the hunting of tiger prey, have also enabled numbers to recover in Salak Phra wildlife sanctuary.

However, threats to tigers remain, including from human encroachment and forest fires. The climate crisis was also a concern, though its impact was difficult to measure, Rattapan said.