How would it affect you if the tiger went extinct?
After Sariska, it is now the turn of Panna to become tiger-less.
This magnificent animal seems to be inexorably on the way out.
How would you be affected if the tiger were to go extinct?
Reason: Missing words
How would I be affected you ask??? Not much directly, if thats what you mean. But it would be devastating to realise that some day in the future if I wanted to visit a tiger sanctuary, there won't be any tigers in it, whats more my children and hundreds of others would just have to look at images and photos to understand what a Tiger was!!! And the thought I will not be able to see a Tiger alive in its full magnificence kinda depresses me.
Interesting topic indeed.
I believe, we wouldn't know the complete effects of it. This could be a classic study example for Chaos Theory or specifically The Butterfly Effect.
On a superficial level, the future generations would know about our National Animal only through archived video footage and through computer generated models on Discovery Channel.
Cheers !!....
A special one to protect the tiger? Yeah... why not? That would make two badges with a tiger in it! 
I spent an entire evening at the zoo just watching 2 white tigers at play. Beautiful creatures. Aesthetically, they're a lot prettier than humans! Sure would be a shame to not have them around.
The latest is Project Tiger has had a name change. Its official name now is the Tiger Conservation Authority.
As bloggers, the best we can do for the tiger is to devote at least one post in our blogs to the tiger. This will sensitise our readers to the plight of the tiger, and may be someone sowhere will be motivated to take the steps that can arrest the slide of the tiger towards extinction.
Here is my post on tigers in my blog Jaihindi Magazine -
If there is anything else that bloggers as a community can do for the tiger, let us discuss that too here.
I dont think we should be using that. It should be an Awareness Inititative, distinct in itself.
Can we make tiger conservation the topic of the month for Best Blogger of the Month Award?
Not this month.
Or may be it should be topic for, say June. That will give people enough time write half a dozen posts on the tiger in their blogs.
That can be a Topic Based Contest, not the month. What say?
Another suggestion, let us create a category in IndiVine for Tiger Conservation, or if you want a broader category, Wildlife Conservation. It could collect articles on this topic from bloggers.
This will encourage bloggers to write about wildlife conservation, and readers too will be sensitised about wildlife conservation.
This you can suggest on the IndiVine page. Let's see if the mods approve that. Then, we can start adding our views on how to take this forward.
Thank Hemal. As suggested by you, I have requested a new category "Wildlife Conservation" for IndiVine. Do second it when the occasion arises.
Yes, poaching, and habitat loss, are the most serious threat to the tiger. Their own rivalry in which some tigers get killed, as well as the males killing the cubs of their rivals to get the females into heat, is a natural process and has little to do with the survival of the tiger. This is a practice that is found in many animals, including lions, langurs, and even ourselves (some of the tribes in S. America do just this).
Tiger body parts fetch fabulous amounts in the clandestine wildlife markets of London, Shanghai and Tokyo. One kg of tiger bones fetches 100,000 dollars. No wonder poachers take any amount of risk to gun down these magnificent animals.
Therefore, to save the tiger we need to educate the Chinese and the Japanese more than the Indians, because it they who use tiger parts in their traditional medicines which have a huge demand.
Recently they have taken up tiger farming to get tiger parts, but many conservation experts and animal right activists say this way actually precipitate the destruction of the tiger, for this may spur the demand for tiger parts by popularising tiger medicine, and to meet this demand more wild tigers would be slaughtered.
A ban on trade in tiger parts is in place. It should be strictly imposed by international cooperation. That is the only hope that the tigers have.
This is quite common. In Ahmedabad Zoo, most of the animals have citizen sponsors who could be anyone from corporates to housewives. They provide for the expenditure involved in feeding and looking after the animals for a specified period of time, in return for which they name is displayed on the cage of the animal.
Applying this to wildlife conservation, which involves a lot of science and money, will be difficult.
Suggestion: When we can have private Thermal Power plants, private airports, ports, banks insurance companies why we can not have private Wild life sanctuaries. I am sure private enterprise will be able to do a much better job on the same in this field also.
I am sure in some other countires this is already in place and we can learn from them. This will serve the purpose of conservation as well as revenue generation to make the parks self sustainable. The govt can put regulations in place and we can give 10 year lease for the parks to private companie and they will have to meet conservation and revenue targets for the same.
Shamelessly posting the link about a blog I wrote about visitng Jim Corbett national park.
http://kidsandcar.blogspot.com/2009/04/visit-to-king.html
The only issue would be, and that would be a big issue indeed, is what to do with the people who are living in the private wildlife sanctuaries.
India being a thickly populated place, there is not an inch of land that is not inhabited. The private companies would not want people in the parks they manage, so this will become a big issue, leading to a lot of dislocation of people, and even serious political fallout. Even large industries like Tata are not able to manage this properly, see what happened in Singur and Nandigram.
Even the Forest Department is not able to handle the human population in sactuaries properly.
A better solution would be for the private companies to fund the conservation effort of the Forest Department. It coulp provide better equipment such as jeeps, guns, tents, cameras, solar lanterns, uniforms, etc., to the forest department personnel, to help them better patrol the sanctuaries. They could do this as part of their CSR expenditure. Many corporates like Godrej are already doing this.
They could also fund the relocation of villages from sanctuaries to outside areas.
Thirdly, they could give employment in their factories and offices to people living in core areas of national parks to induce them to move out from there.
So, I don't think privatisation of national parks is an answer, but a private-public partnership on the lines outlined above could be one.
It'll affect us indirectly as forests would be devastated if tigers aren't there to control herbivores population
Which are your favourite tiger books?
My list:
1. Man-eaters of Kumaon, Jim Corbett
2. Temple Tiger, Jim Corbett
3. Jungle Lore, Jim Corbett
4. Tiger, Kailash Sankhala
5. Tiger Haven, Billy Arjan Singh
6. With a Camera in Tiger Land, Dunbar Brander
That is a keen observation.
Leopards abound in most tiger jungles. They are fearsome predators.
That is a very difficult question to answer.
The tiger fascinates me because it is in total control of its situation (excepting, of course, the poachers!). Everything else revolves around the tiger in its domain. It is the top boss there.
It is of course beautiful, it is of course powerful, but it is this one aspect that completely bowls me over. It is something I too would like to be, in total control over my situation, but can't achieve that for various mundane reasons. That makes me greatly envy the tiger.
It symbolises the ultimate freedom, the ultimate wilderness, the ultimate in nature. That is why we should not allow it to fall off the map of the world. With it will go much of what we cherish for ourselves and what should aspire for.
Life will certainly become a lot more drab and meaningless without the tiger out there in our forests.
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