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.

Stop Shooting the "Big Bad Wolf"

The superiority complex of humans is truly remarkable. Our species has driven hundreds of animals extinct and will drive more to that horrible fate before this week is out. In America, the gray wolf was almost gone for good due to an unwarranted fear and hatred for the animal. “Kill what you don’t understand” seems to be the human way of things.

Even with advances in biological studies of wolves and reintroduction of many groups into the wild there is still such ignorance that I want to scream. Just when the wolves looked like they were making a (partial) comeback, hunting of them was legalized (again). I say partial comeback because it is impossible for them to truly come back to what they once were when most of their lands have been “claimed” by farmers that need to protect “their” livestock.

Billings Gazette: “An examination of Montana’s first public gray-wolf hunt showed at least nine of the animals were killed in an area prone to livestock attacks — a finding that could blunt criticism that the hunt was ineffective.

Confident state wildlife officials said they could increase the quota on the predators next year. They want to zero in on a number that would strike a balance between protecting the wolf population and stopping increasing attacks on livestock and big-game herds.”

Let me get this straight, not only are farmers mad about wolves killing cows that are not a natural food source for wolves, but “big game herds”? What exactly is a big game herd you ask? Typically this refers to herds of elk, a food staple for wolves. Referring to them as “game” only illustrates the point that only human hunting is being taken into effect here. Everything is NOT just for humans. The wolves can’t kill cattle because they are our source of food and money, yet they can’t kill elk, because we want to hunt them. What can they eat may I ask?

A counterpoint to the Montana article, from the USA Today : “The Yellowstone pack hardest hit by the hunt is nicknamed Cottonwood. Hunters killed four members of the pack, including the breeding female, her mate and her daughter in a Montana wilderness area bordering the park.

"The wolves have it hard enough inside the park," says Rolf Peterson, a wildlife biologist at Michigan Technical University "The Yellowstone wolves should be treated like national treasures and protected."’

It is not the fault of a wolf if another species (humans) have singlehandedly killed off almost every indigenous food source and taken over most of their lands. There is no choice when put in a situation of survival to eat things that aren’t normally on the food pyramid (for example the cattle that are grazing on the land stolen from the wolves and all of their indigenous brethren).

From one of the ignorant people care of the Billings Gazette (link earlier in post) in Montana: “Ranchers like Jerry Ehmann, 63, counter that the state’s hunt is not doing enough. Ehmann said he used to run about 200 head of cattle on 25,000 acres of public land in southwestern Montana’s Bitterroot Range. After wolves started harassing his animals this year and five calves went missing, Ehmann decided to cut back to only 72 animals and keep them fenced in on his ranch near Sula. He sold off the remaining cattle in November.”

Heaven forbid that someone needs to limit their stock of animals that are not natural to the environment they live on!

WISDOM

Seek always, for by looking for one thing you will surely find another

-this is the path to wisdom.