When Stripes Become Bars

The Plight of the Tiger


The tiger is in trouble, but you already knew that. It is a predominate civilized practice to systematically wipe out that which scares, mystifies, or avoids man. This practice has been applied to wolves, lions, elephants, mountain lions (pumas) and pretty much every non-human species on the planet.


America, you might quibble, is guilt free, at least, in the plight of the orange and black feline—not so. Did you know that there are more tigers behind bars in the United States than there are living wild in the entire world? And these are barely tigers at all. How can an animal kept in a cage of concrete, steel, and artificial stimulation even come close to mirroring their wild relatives? Tigers in zoos are not tigers at all; they are depressed animals that know nothing but boundaries and limits.


WWF (World Wildlife Fund) has taken this year of the tiger to launch a campaign to try to save them. Link From the website: “The issues highlighted in the trouble spots map (www.worldwildlife.org/troublespots) include:
* Pulp, paper, palm oil and rubber companies are devastating the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia, home to two endangered tiger sub-species;
* Hundreds of new or proposed dams and roads in the Mekong region will fragment tiger habitat;
* Illegal trafficking in tiger bones, skins and meat feeds a continued demand in East and Southeast Asia;
* More tigers are kept in captivity in the U.S. than are left in the wild -- and there are few regulations to keep these tigers from ending up on the black market. The largest numbers of captive tigers are in Texas (an estimated 3,000+), but they are also kept in other states;
* Poaching of tigers and their prey, along with a major increase in logging is taking a heavy toll on Amur, or Siberian, tigers;
* Tigers and humans are increasingly coming into conflict in India as tiger habitats shrink;
* Climate change could reduce tiger habitat in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangroves by 96 percent.

Three tiger sub-species have gone extinct since the 1940s and a fourth one, the South China tiger, has not been seen in the wild in 25 years. Tigers occupy just seven percent of their historic range. But they can thrive if they have strong protection from poaching and habitat loss and enough prey to eat.”

Map: Below are two maps of where tigers lived in 1900 and where they live now. Before 1900 I’d assume the territories were much larger.
So what can you do? Well that depends where you live and what you are willing to risk. These animals do not need our help to live; on the contrary, they need our help to avoid their death. Their habitat needs to be preserved and restored. They need to be respected and not put behind bars. Breeding programs in captivity need to result in cups that are rehabilitated and released into the wild, not shipped to another zoo. You can write to your zoo and tell them that. You can write to companies that use products containing palm oil. You can go stand on the front lines of the issue and stop poachers and clear cutters. You can spread the word. You can donate money.

What can’t you do? Ignore the issue.