Are tigers in South America?

There are no tigers, in the wild, in South America. The largest wildcat in South America is the jaguar. The jaguar is a large cat and the third largest wildcat after the tiger and the lion.

You will be able to see tigers in zoos etc. in South America. The only tigers in South America are captive tigers. There are many zoos in South America. There are probably tigers at the Municipal Zoological Park Quinzinho de Barros in the municipality of Sorocaba. This is a major Brazilian zoo.

Golden Tabby Tiger

I have a problem with the golden tabby tiger. There is nothing to suggest that it has ever existed in the wild. Yet it exists as a tourist attraction in captivity. And people who are pro-captive tigers and pro tigers as pets say that the golden tabby tiger and other tigers with a variety of coat types are good for conservation because they stimulate our interest in the tiger and in supporting conservation. I don't believe it.

Golden tabby tiger on display with "Doc" Antle - Photo by jmwests

The golden tabby tiger's coat is a product of the presence of a recessive gene that lies dormant and is therefore not expressed through a different coat (phenotype). It seems to me that you have to inbreed this tiger in captivity to get the gene to express itself in this rare coat type (seen above).

The white tiger is another example of an acutely inbred wildcat that is bred for the sake of financial profit. There is no element of conservation in the process.

And another thing. To use the word "tabby" indicates to me that is was first used by tiger breeders. The word "tabby" is basically a cat fancy word in the breeding of domestic purebred show cats. It is completely out of place when used to describe the appearance of a tiger.

The photographs of golden tabby tigers I have seen are of flabby not tabby cats! They are overweight and unfit in my opinion. One element of this unfitness might be inbreeding. The liger, which is a tiger/lion cross, also comes to mind as an overweight flabby big cat.

There are no references to the golden tabby tiger in the respected Wild Cats Of The World by Mel and Fiona Sunquist. They refer to the melanistic tiger (black tiger) and white tiger but not other morphs. The melanistic tiger has been seen three times, once in each of Myanmar, Bangladesh and eastern India. All white tigers stem from one tiger, Mohan a captured cub, his white mother having been killed. White tigers are inbred too and it causes well documented major health issues.

Sorry to sound very pessimistic but the golden tabby tiger (ridiculous cat breeder's style name) is all about people who like to keep captive wildcats and make a bit of money on the side. It's about personal self interest. There is nothing altruistic about it.

How many tigers in Texas?

We don't know how many tigers there are in Texas. This is because generic tigers (non-purebred tigers) need not be registered with the authorities under a licensing scheme. We see large figures circulating around the internet: 4,000 or 5,000 tigers in Texas which are numbers far greater than the total of all tiger subspecies in the wild.

However, Lynn Culver the executive director of the Feline Conservation Federation says that there are "not 5,000 tigers" in Texas. She says that there are between "259 and 325 tigers living in Texas" (33 licensed facilities). These figures however come from USDA licensed facilities. What about the unlicensed facilities? How many are there?

Lynn says that most US states have less than 50 tigers. Florida is the next big tiger state with 227 tigers in 35 licensed facilities.

What domestic cats look like tigers?

The toyger purebred cat is a designer domestic cat that is designed to look like a tiger. The cat is work in progress. Mackerel tabby cats have stripes that are similar to tiger stripes but no where near as bold or as high contrast. Mackerel tabby cats can be random bred or purebred.

Another purebred cat that looks a bit tiger-like and which is large is the Mokave Jag Cat (pronounced mo ka vee).

It is not just about the coat. It is about the way the cat walks! And the facial appearance etc.. Personally, I don't like the idea of trying to create a miniature tiger through selective breeding. It somehow seems wrong to me. But I respect the views of others.

End the Trade in Generic Tigers

This is about the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) proposal to rescind (meaning remove in this instance) the exemption from the requirement of registration - the permit and reporting requirements that normally apply to endangered species - of so called generic tigers in the USA.

Generic tigers are, if you like, non-purebred tigers. They are not one of the subspecies of tiger. They are hybrids. However there are large numbers of them in the USA in private hands and that is astonishing to Europeans.

USFWS don't really know how many there are and whether the tigers feed the insatiable demand for tiger body parts that is fed from tiger farms in China. It is possible that tigers are being killed in the USA and exported to China.

To remove the exemption to register would allow the authorities to monitor the situation, to have a handle on it and thereby help tiger conservation.

This is because farming tigers feeds the tiger body part trade. This promotes that trade which is highly detrimental to the tiger's survival in wild.

At the moment the USFWS are going through a consultation process before making a decision to change the regulations.

They invite correspondence from around the world. If you want to help the tiger and inject some control over ad hoc private captive tigers facilities, about which we know very little on the ground, then please go the USFWS website and complete the form. It may help make this important change. It is overdue.

The Feline Conservation Federation (FCF) is fighting to leave things as they are. I find this shocking to be honest because the FCF as their title implies is about conservation and the proposed change can only assist in conservation and in addition it will probably release many captive tigers from miserable lives in cages in the USA.

There are an estimated 5,000 captive tigers in Texas alone. This is far more than all the wild tigers put together! An astonishing fact and very sad for people who care about nature. However it is said that this estimate is highly exaggerated and in fact there are far less. We are not sure.

Here is a link to the page to have your say:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=FWS-R9-IA-2011-0027-0001

I understand that you have to do this before 21st September 2011. If you like you can write:

Public Comments Processing
Attn: FWS-R9-IA-2011-0027
Division of Policy and Directives Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Drive, MS 2042-PDM
Arlington, VA 22203


But act fast please.

Tiger Blood

Well tiger blood is tiger blood and I wish people had a concern for the real thing as it is inside the body of a magnificent wild animal that is gradually becoming extinct in the wild.

However, sadly the press and blogs chew over the tiger blood that Charlie Sheen says courses through his veins or the tiger blood that he drinks or the tiger blood that another manufacturer makes on the back of Charlie's statement.

Yep, Charlie Sheen says he has tiger blood inside him. People have discussed what this means. I guess it just means he is a bit wild and reckless because he doesn't care about the consequences. He is as wild and as disregarding of accepted standards as a wild tiger. Fine - I think it as simple as that.

Charlie Sheen then took to drinking a blood red drink that is meant to be good for your health. It bloody well should be at $44 per bootle.

The other drink is in a container that looks like a blood transfusion bag and the drink contains caffeine. A pick me up kind of drink obviously.

That is it really. I think it is all a load of madness. In a more sensible society we would be discussing how to save the tiger from persecution for its body parts and from habitat loss due to human population growth. We hardly ever discuss the latter because it is taboo.

The obsession with Charlie Sheen is a reflection of the obsession with celebrity. It is a very sad society.



From Tiger Blood to Home Page

Siberian Tigers Starved

I guess you have heard about the Siberian tigers starved to death, all 11 (or is it 13³) of them in a Chinese  Zoo (I have seen a picture of one of the starved but living tigers and it is horrendous). The zoo couldn't afford to feed them so they fed them all manner of rubbish that was highly innappropriate and eventually they starved to death at which point the zoo buried them to keep it all quiet until they were dug up.

That is not the whole picture though. This same zoo was allegedly, illegally, selling the ubiquitous tiger bone wine or is it "tonics" (a quite ridiculous product based on pure ignorance). Some zoo. The Siberian tiger is becoming extinct in the wild because of people's activities in destroying habitat and sport hunting etc. and this largest of all the tigers is being starved to death in captivity.

How bad does our behavior have to become before we take steps to change things? The whole thing disgusts me frankly. And I find it acutely depressing.

Here is some detail on the Siberian tigers starved to death:

The zoo is the Shenyang Forest Wildlife zoo. It is a semi-private operation, which means part is owned by the local or national government, which in turn means that they are equally to blame. But we already know that the Chinese government has no regard for tigers or indeed wildlife. There are thousands of captive tigers in "zoos" and horrible tiger farms (6,000 in fact¹) in China and I allege that all are involved in the tiger body parts trade. That is why they exist! The tiger body parts trade is simply ridiculous and idiotic because there is no health benefits associated with consuming tiger body parts and there are alternatives that actually work. It is fraud built on fraud while the tiger is treated dispicably.

This is where this dispicable place is:-


View Larger Map

The problem is much wider and deeper. Of the 6,000 captive and farmed tigers it is said that 1,000 are starving².

The "zoo" was created as a tourist attraction but I allege its true purpose was to supply the tiger parts business - utterly cynical behavior. But is there a silver lining? If I am correct it might mean that the tiger body part business supplying the Chinese medicine trade is on the wane, in decline. This is unlikely but possible as the tiger (Bengal or Siberian  - the others are as good as extinct) is on the very edge of extinction and that may have put more pressure on conservation albeit massively late in the day. Horribly late and in fact almost certainly too late in my opinion as tiger population sizes in the wild are unsustainable it would seem.

The assessment that the tiger body part business might be in decline is borne out by the fact (it seems to be a fact) that the zoo in question had to store tiger parts in freezers as they could not sell them. That cost money which would otherwise have been spent of tiger food. The freezers are thought to contain hundreds of tiger carcasses.

To add insult to injury the people (police and senior forestry officials)  charged with protecting wildlife including the tiger were allegedly involved in the open secret of the illegal tiger bone tonic wine. It is all horribly corrupt and a hopeless lost cause.

We must remind ourselves that there are no animal welfare or cruelty laws in China. Where there is little in the way of human rights how can there be animal rights? So not only are they starved to death they are maltreated by being declawed and detoothed².

To round off this depressing post, it is alleged that tigers were being fed sweet buns instead of meat. Can you believe the scandal, the horror of this callous, careless, and cruel place labelled a bloody zoo?

References:
1. http://www.worldzootoday.com/
2. Guardian newpaper
3. Sky News



From to Siberian Tigers Starved Home Page

Biofuels Are Killing the Tiger

Biofuels don't even work and they are killing the Sumatran tiger. The Sumatran tiger as you would expect lives on the island of Sumatra, which is one of the islands of Asia (another is the third largest island in the world, Borneo) that is being deforested in part to make way for plantations where biofuels are grown.

 

Sumatran tiger - photo by Craig Grobler (Flickr)

Biofuels are meant to reduce carbon emissions, which in turn will help to control, over the long term, global warming. Biofuels are produced from plant matter on plantations. For example Palm oil, like other vegetable oils, can be used to create biodiesel for internal combustion engines. Biodiesel has been promoted as a renewable energy source to reduce net emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore, biodiesel is seen as a way to decrease the impact of the greenhouse effect and as a way of diversifying energy supplies to assist national energy security plans (Wikipedia authors). Palm oil is extracted from the Oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis), which is grown on plantations.

The making of biofuels is now big business in places like Sumatra, Indonesia and Malaysia. These are Asian countries where there are dense ancient forests that are the home to tree dwelling and forest dwelling animals one of which is the Sumatran tiger, the smallest of the tigers and which is critically endangered per the IUCN Red List. Logging ancient forest to make way for biofuel plantations could be made out to be worthwhile (not for me) if it saved the planet from global warming and catastrophe but it doesn't work. The plan, the analysis call it what you like is fatally flawed so we are killing the tiger for no good reason other than to make photocopying paper, which is another reason to chop down these forests.

A recent government study has concluded that burning fossil fuels (coal or oil dug up from the ground) is better for the environment that the so-called green fuels made from plantation crops. What is cruel and totally mad is that the UK governments targets for increasing the use of biofuels (in diesel for cars, for example), will result in millions of acres of forest being logged (and some just burnt!) to make way for these plantations.

But some of the most commonly used biofuels fail to meet even the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission. The standard demands that one litre of biofuel should reduce emissions by at least 35% over the same amount of fossil fuel. The study concludes that the use of biofuels actually increases carbon emissions by 31%! This is because of the release of carbon into the atmosphere when forest is burnt and turned into plantations. In short the maths don't add up and we are killing the wildlife and the precious Sumatran tiger for nothing (except large profits of course). In an interesting statistic, it is said that a palm oil plantation will take 840 years to soak up the carbon released by the burning of the forest that was removed to make space for it.

The trouble now is that an industry has been built around biofuels that is worth 3 billion euros in Euros in subsidies alone in Europe. This big business will protect itself even if it is built on sand and quite pointless. One argument is that palm oil trees create another forest, which is sustainable. The rules are being changed or bent to fit into the new process mad or not.

The expansion of the palm oil business in Indonesia has turned the country into the world's third largest emitter of CO₂. An area of forest the size of Wales, UK, is lost every year in Indonesia! Another precious animal that is on the brink of extinction is the orag-utan.

The world is mad and I am angry.



From Biofuels Are Killing the Tiger to Home Page

Tiger Skins For Sale

Tiger skins for sale are almost the norm in China. It seems to entirely accepted and the ban on trade of tiger parts is largely unenforced. The profits are so large that they create high levels of motivation for the traders. And the profits are getting larger as the tiger becomes scarcer. It is all about supply and demand of course. It the demand side is maintained or rises and the supply side diminishes than prices rise, obviously. As prices rise the the trade becomes more profitable encouraging more traders so the trade becomes harder to stop.

And so as the tiger edges towards extinction in the wild the process of extinction speeds up. It is almost too late unless a massive effort is put in place and that effort must come from the Chinese authorities. Demand must dry up because it is all but impossible to protect the tiger in the wild.

View Larger Map

The video below was taken in Linxia, China, where an employee of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a UK based charity went undercover to act as a buyer

One thing that jumps of the page is that videos about this trade are hardly watched. People are not interested, really; it is true and it is this background apathy that allows the trade to continue. The burden to stop falls on a relatively small number of people. There really needs to be a ground swell of dissent at the loss of the tiger in the wild and tiger skins of sale is just one part of the problem.

The whole of the tiger is used as a product. Tiger bone is more valuable than its skin and particularly the forelimbs. It is sick.

Apparently one route for this obnoxious trade is that poached tigers in India where protection is lax are transported via Nepal to China (and other countries in Asia) where they like to eat the tiger for medicinal purposes.

A big push to preserve the tiger has been instigated by Russia, surprisingly. Something big needs to happen to save the tiger.

National Tiger Conservation Authority

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has a website that is entitled Project Tiger (new page). The reason why I visited it was because I noticed a press release (not from the NTCA website) that said a drastic change in method was to be employed by the NTCA in its management of 11 tiger reserves of India. All the reserves combined cover an area of 37,761 Km².

The embarrassment of losing all the tigers of the most prestigious reserve at Sariska-Panna to poaching (this is now more or less accepted as being the cause of the loss) and the further embarrassment of introducing breeding tigers that are related (this is yet to be confirmed for one of the tigers, a male, but it looks likely) and which are unfit for breeding has caused what is being described as a knee jerk reaction in deciding to coral the remaining tigers in 11 reserves to protect them and force them to breed.

As few as 5-15 tigers are in each of these reserves. This seems an impossibly low figure. How do they prevent inbreeding with resultant genetic defects and poor sperm quality? (See cat inbreeding means poor sperm quality). I guess they ship fresh stock in but it with such low populations in all these reserves is this viable.

The plan was forced on the National Tiger Conservation Authority. But it seems to me, a layperson, that at a certain point in time the cause is almost lost and that moment would seem to be fast approaching.

The press release page on the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s website is dated August 5th 2005. No that is not a typo. It is 2005 almost 4 years ago. Not much happening then! I was expecting to see a press release about this latest project but nothing on the website. The news came from timesofindia.indiatimes.com.

A toxic mix of the following is admitted on the NTCA website to be causing tiger losses:

• human population growth
• poor management – Sariska: breakdown in internal park management and a faulty system to count the tigers! And breakdown in the relationship between villagers on the reserve and management of the reserve.
• habitat destruction on the reserves - mining
• no or little protection for the tiger
• despite CITES classification tigers are poached almost to order it seems, with some people thinking the wardens are involved. Tiger bone gets a mention on the website. As at 2003 (I believe) trade in tiger body parts was increasing particularly bones. The price: 10 grams for US$ 24.5 at the China/Vietnam border. The NTCA site says that trade in tiger body parts was permitted in Japan until 4-2000. They admit to difficulties in controlling illicit trade. This can probably be translated to mean very little enforcement of CITES exists.
• a lack of vigour in relocating people on the reserves to avoid human/tiger conflict. Over 30 years, only 80+ villages have been relocated from all the 28 reserves. 1,500 remain inside the reserves and 250 of them are in core areas of tiger reserves.
• tiger persecuted on a number of levels

Really, I am sorry to say that the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s website looks as lifeless as the body of the poached tigers. I suspect very little or nothing has happened on the site for years. Even large parts of the navigation bar do not work. This is indicative of the general malaise surrounding the management of the Bengal tiger I feel and I am sorry to sound critical but it is so sad and depressing.

The website should be much more active. If someone asked me I’d do the work!! – for free, of course.

From National Tiger Conservation Authority to Wild Cat Species

See also Bengal tiger facts

Zoo Tiger Attack

Sometimes we hear of a zoo tiger attack. It is not that uncommon. I guess it is bound to happen not too infrequently despite the best efforts of the zoo management and keepers. This is because of the circumstances. And the circumstances are fundamentally highly dysfunctional and a sad reflection on how we (people) behave on this planet.

The tiger is a large wild cat that demands a large range in which to hunt prey. This is hard wired into the cat’s brain. Humans are not the usual prey of tigers but sometimes tiger attacks in the wild do take place (increasingly so) when tiger and people are forced into close proximity because of human activity, human population growth, unethical business practice, unsustainable business practices, short term thinking and planning, constant economic growth; in short all things unthinkingly human. Or a person injures a tiger so that it has to hunt people (easy prey). Basically, in whatever guise it comes, we cause the tiger attacks on us.

Of course we blame the tiger, naturally. Notwithstanding that the tiger is acting totally naturally and instinctively in response to our interaction with it.

A recent zoo tiger attack bears out my assessment of the dysfunctionality of it all. Firstly, there are good arguments for closing all zoos as they are fundamentally unnatural for the animals. It is unhealthy and if we had better managed the world’s resources and forests etc. we wouldn’t need zoos. We could have seen the tigers in the wild. Once again zoos, a second rate concept designed to entertain us at the animals’ expense, are due exclusively to our behaviour.

There was a zoo tiger attack by a white tiger in New Zealand recently. It happened at the Zion Wildlife Gardens in Whangarei (new window).

There is talk of closing the wildlife gardens down. I say they should never have opened. I know that in isolation it seems a good idea to have a wildlife park. We need to have them now because white tigers, all tigers in fact, are becoming extinct in the wild. But looking at the bigger picture would it not be more sensible to put resources into really preserving these cats in the wild? To put resources into creating a harmonious relationship with other animals with which we share the planet. Wild life parks or zoos are a horrible reflection of failure. They are a poor compromise, a strain on our character and a symptom of long term neglect of the bigger environmental issues that are now facing us.

The person killed was it seems a decent, caring and well liked senior cat handler, Dalu Mncube. Tourists watched the attack including children. The keeper suffered injuries to the abdomen and lower leg. It happened at 11 am when Mr Mncube and other keeper were cleaning out the enclosure. Why did it happen? And should the park close?

This is a lion at the Zion Wildlife Gardens – photo by ashiri

I have not seen an assessment as to why it happened. One person commented that it could be the smell from another tiger or animal on the keepers from cleaning out another enclosure causing the tiger to treat the keeper as prey or to defend from an attack. This sounds sensible but I don’t know if it is true and if it is I would have thought the park owners would be liable in law. They are probably liable in any case and may have to close because paying compensation may bankrupt them.

The royal white tiger was shot dead because it would not let go (apparently). Now that is the bit that is highly dysfunctional for me, although I realise the situation would have been very stressful requiring immediate decisions. However, the circumstances under which the zoo tiger attack occurred were wholly due to people, humans. The tiger at all times acted naturally, instinctively and predictably in the sense that it was known that there was a danger of an attack. That danger is always present. Under these circumstances there must be a method to save the tiger surely?

Why then was the tiger shot? It seems that there were not proven methods to deal with these circumstances? And if there are no guaranteed ways of stopping a zoo tiger attack other than by shooting the tiger then tigers should not be kept in zoos. I thought that in this world the perpetrator of wrong doing (us in this instance) is punished and the victim assisted and compensated. Doesn’t shooting the tiger turn the death of one into two? What have I got wrong? I seem to have missed the point.

From Zoo Tiger Attack to Home Page

Deforestation in Indonesia

We know that deforestation in Indonesia is rapid and vigorous because the destruction of Indonesian rain forest accounts for about 4% of greenhouse gas emissions made by humankind at the date of this posting.

Why does this bother me particularly? Because it is probably the single biggest cause of the gradual extirpation of wildcats in the wild. Many of the small wildcats live in forest:

• African Golden Cat
• Asian Golden Cat
• Clouded Leopard
• Bornean Bay Cat
• Asian Leopard Cat
• Flat Headed Cat

This is just an example. In this post, though, I would like to mention the very rare Sumatran tiger whose presence in the wild will be severely jeopardized by plans that are being finalised to log 124,000 acres or 50,000 hectares of forest in Indonesia. What is particularly galling is that trees that can take hundreds of years to grow will be converted to photocopying paper that will be used in seconds and thrown away in minutes.

I am talking about an area of forest that is the last remaining untouched forest, near the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park:

The parcel of land to be logged is near the town of Rengat in the middle of the second map. This is where the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park is. In the top map it is top left of the map. There is a slight discrepancy between the embedded maps and the image map above. Here is a Google map of the area.

View Larger Map

The Bukit Tigapuluh National Park itself has been logged. This is meant to be some sort of reserve, a protected area! Having almost destroyed the park, the logging company in league with the government, looked to more virgin forest, neighboring ancient forest:

The Park itself has been under consistent threat from illegal logging and Palm oil plantations, with two thirds of the park logged (Wikipedia)

The government clearly has no concern for the tiger and are it seems are solely concerned with making a fast buck. Palm oil is popular at present as an alternative to petrol. It is use as a bio-fuel. So the demise of the Sumatran tiger is down to paper and fuel.

The company concerned is Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). Their website declares that they are concerned with the environment bla bla bla. Pure ***. “Care for Tomorrow” …..” We support actions for……environmental sustainability” bla bla bla.

APP has a very poor history. Do an internet search and you see words like “corruption”, “bullying villagers” “environmental exploitation” etc. This is clearly a bad company with a bad history of slash and burn disregarding the people and their lives and wildlife. They are supported no doubt by the Indonesian government. Say no more. And you know what? Nothing can be done about it except stop buying their products.

Back to the Sumatran tiger. Between 1982 and 2007 APP deforestation may have killed 70% of the Sumatran tiger population in killing 450 of them (src: WWF). APP claim that their logging protects forest by preventing illegal logging. They say “well managed pulp wood plantations act as buffer zones”. The trouble is they are just cutting down old forest. Where are APP’s plantations? Deforestation in Indonesia is killing off the Sumatran tiger, elephants and orang-utans.

Currently, there are only 100-400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild (Wikipedia)

Photo of Sumatran tiger: published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License -- this site is for charitable purposes in funding cat rescue.

From Deforestation in Indonesia to Home Page

Muddled Tiger Conservation in India

I feel despair for the safety of the tiger. Every time we read local news stories about tiger conservation we notice clear signs that despite genuine attempts by many parties to the objective of saving the tiger in the wild, there is a lack of coordination at the least, which is weakening and diluting the efforts. And I intend no criticism but I feel it must be said as the number one party in all this is the tiger and he or she is going down the plug hole unless things change. Here are some examples of what I mean.

---

Please, I do not want to hear from people who say it is none of my business what happens in another country. The tiger belongs to the world. All people should be concerned and all should, I think, do their bit to help

---

In the Hindu News update Service we have a report of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) deciding to work more closely with the state governments to ensure proper use of central government funds in conserving the tiger in the states concerned. The Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh said that some states had failed to spend their budget! I find this astonishing. At least Rs 610 crore (apparently about $126 million) is allocated to tiger conservation and relocation of villages from central funds.

Are people at the sharp end saying that they don't have sufficient funds? Yes, it seems there are. A recent news story from Associated Press about the death of 30 big cats in Indian reserves (some of which seem to have been poisoned - see tiger poisoning) contains a quote from R N Mehrotra, chief wildlife warden of Ranthambore National Park. He told the Press Association: "Any support will be helpful. States have their constraints. The investigation is a complex issue since you cannot single out any one cause for tiger deaths...Definitely there is a lack of personnel, and the lack of funds is another constraint. We cannot exclude the increasing demand for tiger products, poaching and other wildlife crimes."

So at the top there is funding that is not getting to the sharp end it seems. It would appear that the state governments are holding back some of the funds for purposes that they consider more important. This is either a demonstration of a lack of commitment at best or plain corruption at worst. I don't know which and I am not saying that there has been corruption.

Other examples of a lack of probity leak out daily almost, it seems. Regarding the 30 killed big cats in reserves mentioned above, a senior person said that he had received reports that some tigers had died as a result of "mutual combat". This sounded odd and an investigation as to deaths is planned to take place. It has now been decided by the NTCA to investigate each tiger death by an independent team to try and get a handle on the problem. Well, from thousands of miles away and without the benefit of a post mortem (if one takes place) I can smell underhand behavior.

How often do tigers fight each other to the death? On a commonsense basis this sounds wrong as it is against basic instincts of survival. In a study in 1993 regarding the dispersal of tigers in Nepal (http://www.jstor.org/pss/4535090) it was found that out of ten males that dispersed 2 died of intrasexual aggression (male to male). In that small sample 20% died of fights between each other. It cannot, therefore be used as a good reason for tiger deaths generally and I am surprised that the reserves have not run post mortems already. Why wait for the central authority to dictate the obvious? There can only be one reason: lack of commitment and/or probity.

Another example of general muddle or worse is the story of the tiger caught in a wire trap in Goa. The trap incidentally was in the Mhadei wildlife sanctuary. The poacher having caught the tiger shot it. The Goa forest officials handled the incident and failed to report to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) who felt that they were kept in the dark. A wildlife specialist (called an "activist" which has a slightly derogatory tone to it), Rajendra Kerkar, is reported to have said that the forest department is in league with the local politicians and the politicians are getting a piece of the action by sheltering the poachers. If that is true and it sounds like it is there is no chance for the tiger in the wild because corruption at this level will not change and it will totally undermine any serious attempts to save the tiger from extinction in the wild.

This is why I fear for the tiger and why I say that there is a muddled tiger conservation in India. Indeed I think it goes further than just muddled tiger conservation in India. Further reading:

• Poisoning tigers
• Cats and Corruption
• Election fraud kills the tiger

From Muddled Tiger Conservation in India to Home Page

Election Fraud Kills the Tiger

Indirectly but surely, election fraud kills the tiger in India and Asia. I have already mentioned in a post called, cats and corruption how corruption in government and government agencies in India severely diminishes the effectiveness of any strategies in relation to the preservation of the tiger. That post was not critical of the fact that there is corruption. I was simply quoting people living in Asia. It is the people of India who are critical of the corruption. For me, it is more a sadness that it continues to happen and the tiger population continues to decline.

A recent Time news article (2nd April 2009, "Election payouts were charity, not bribes") supports what I have said, not directly, of course, in relation to wildcats but they quote as an example, Manish Tiwani a spokesman for Congress who told the Times that it was "absolutely preposterous [that it was happening]". Mr Tiwani clearly believes that one of the top leaders of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Party, Mr Jaswat Singh, has been openly trying to bribe his way into Parliament two weeks before the elections.

This seems to be symptomatic of Asian politics and it is in Asia where the tiger has its home. Where there is corruption on what seems to be a significant scale they is little hope of protecting the tiger as big business is invloved in the export of tiger body parts. Where there is business there is money and politicians migrate towards money and business to serve self interest only. And frankly, the tiger gets in the way of making money unless it is being used to make money. It could be argued that the tiger is a financial burden unless used as a supply of body parts in breach of CITES. CITES seems to be openly breached.

It has been claimed that the criminalisation of Indian politics began in the 1980s when the dominance of Congress crumbled and regional groups started to determine the composition of fragile coalition governments. The competition to get votes became tougher and this lead to any means possible to get elected including fraud. The criminal courts are hopelessly inefficient so even if someone is charged with election fraud or vote rigging it may take up to 30 years for the case to be concluded.

In India it seems that the lawmakers are also lawbreakers and under these circumstances it is very hard to make real progress on what might be considered a secondary matter the preservation of the wild tiger in India. Ultimately election fraud kills the tiger.



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International Enforcement is Needed for the Tiger

International Enforcement is Needed for the Tiger. I constantly see good intentions to save the tiger in Asia (remember the tiger is only found in Asia) thwarted by a failure to execute a plan. I made a posting recently about poisoning tigers and another about The Tiger is Doomed? In both the cases I feel that the Indian authorities could have achieved more and saved tiger lives if they had executed their plans to conserve the tiger more effectively. Another "failure to execute" has come to light. This is a saying commonly used by sportsmen like Tiger Woods. He plans a strategy but if he hits the ball badly by his standards that day he will have failed to execute the plan.

Another country manifesting a lack of proper execution of its plan is Indonesia. Whereas in China tiger parts are considered good for health when put into medicine, in Indonesia tiger body parts are thought to bring good luck (not for the tiger, obviously). This means that parts like whiskers, teeth, claws and skin, which is worn, bring the wearer good luck. And they also protect from black magic. Look I don't and won't criticize the people who wear these parts of the tiger but to believe in black magic is rather old fashioned, isn't it. That kind of thing went out of fashion 400 years ago, I thought. And I am not knocking some cultural thing. I am just making a comment about the archaic practice of black magic. Education would certainly play a role in drying up demand from the consumer. Another critical problem for the Sumatran tiger's survival is habitat destruction due to the timber trade. Habitat destruction for commercial reasons is a massive problem for the tiger in Asia generally.

The supply of raw product (the tiger) is drying up as a consequence of this ridiculously unacceptable trade. The latest plan (there must have been earlier failed plans) declared by the President of the Republic of Indonesia would seem to be the "Conservation Strategy and Action Plan of Sumatran Tiger 2007–2017" and made during the 2007 Climate Change Convention in Bali.

Yet in a press release by the World Conservation Union, Traffic and WWF dated 13th Feb 2008 (see report) it was declared that the laws of Indonesia have failed to protect the critically endangered (IUCN Red List status CR) Sumatran tiger. Body parts are on open sale in shops in Indonesia. The shop keepers don't even have to hide what they are doing. Any plan is going to fail under those circumstances. There cannot be any enforcement at all or very, very little. The survey estimated that tiger part sale had dropped between 2000 and 2006 due to less tigers being available for slaughter!:

Date	Number tiger estimated to supply shops with parts
2000	56
2006	23
10% of the 326 shops surveyed were selling Sumatran tiger parts

I hope that they don't mind me quoting them (I provide a link in exchange: IUCN Red List) "Despite TRAFFIC providing authorities with details of traders involved, apart from awareness-raising activities, it is not clear whether any serious enforcement action has been taken." This points to lack of execution.

What I want to suggest is that when it comes to people in need of help to save people under dire circumstances, the world communities' assistance is more often than not requested and accepted. Isn't there a market for an international force of wildcat or wildlife enforcement officers who can provide a neutral and independent enforcement task force in countries such as Indonesia to save a fantastic wild animal? And this really is about saving a species from extinction in the wild for ever - the Javan and Bali tigers have already disappeared. I say that international enforcement is needed for the tiger survival in the wild bearing in mind the failed enforcement of plans throughout Asia. International Enforcement is needed for the tiger's protection in relation to habitat loss too, provided the governments enact the laws and are behind an international force.

Heather Sohl of WWF says that if people need help in enforcement they only need ask.



International Enforcement is Needed for the Tiger to Home Page

International Enforcement is Needed for the Tiger - Photo of a Sumatran tiger at London Zoo, UK by by TGIGreeny and published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License (this wesbite is for charitable purposes - cat rescue).

Tiger of Mysore

The Tiger of Mysore is in the news and for me India is a very important place for the world. It is the front line in the battle to save the tiger so I would like to link a story about the sale of the Tiger of Mysore and the tiger itself. This is a golden tiger's head encrusted with precious stones from the throne of Tipu Sultan, who was known as the "Tiger of Mysore" and who was, in effect, the ruler of the Indian Kingdom of Mysore from 1782 until shot by the British in 1799. So we are talking about 2 tigers both of which are not actual tigers! I mention a third below.

Mysore is in Southern India (see map below). Tipu Sultan is considered India's first freedom fighter. The golden tiger's head is the last remaining from the Sultan's throne, which was broken up by the British East India Company's forces in 1799 when the Tipu Sultan was also shot dead.

The object was taken by the person who oversaw the East India Company, Baron Wallace of Knarsdale and has remained with the family, forgotten, it seems, in a bank vault for the past 100 years or so. It is estimated to be worth about £800,000. It may well fetch more if an Indian gentlemen wants to bid for it, which will, I am sure, be the case as this object has a very fine pedigree indeed. I don't know the history of the East India Company but clearly they upset this ruler as he gave his life in the cause to kick them out of India. It could it seems be argued that the Tiger of Mysore was stolen. Perhaps it was considered to be one of the spoils of war. I wonder if there is an argument that it should be returned to India. And if returned or bought by an Indian it should either symbolise the revival of the protection of the real tiger populations or help to fund tiger conservation.


The clockwork tiger automaton depicting a the death of a European soldier by a tiger, a gift (or made for) Tipu Sultan.

Tipu Sultan was a scholar, poet and soldier. A devout Muslim his subjects were Hindus. He practiced all the things a devout Muslim should. Tipu Sultan liked inventions and it seems, boys toys. One such toy is famous and it is a tiger automaton (clockwork tiger - see above). It was made for him personally and no doubt pleased him very much as it portrayed a tiger attacking a European soldier. Tipu Sultan was at war with the British. It is said that the clockwork tiger was made to show the killing of Hugo Monro a senior army officer who had defeated Tipu but who had been killed by a tiger on 22nd December, 1792 on Saugor Island.

This is where Mysore is:


View Larger Map

Tipu Sultans got his title, "Tiger of Mysore", because it is claimed he killed a tiger with his knife, his gun having failed to go offf. His life in brief:

1750	Born at Devanahalli in Karnataka
1756	Aged 15, accompanied father in 1st Anglo-Mysore War
1792	3rd Anglo-Mysore War ended with defeat for Tipu Sultan and he was forced to give up half his kingdom and 2 sons as hostages
1799	Shot dead by the British

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Photos are published under under Wikimedia® creative commons license license = Attribution-ShareAlike License -see Wikipedia license

The Tiger is Doomed?

The tiger is doomed? I am pessimistic this evening about the fate of the tiger. Small populations of wildcats can lead to inbreeding a barrier to survival of the tiger (cat inbreeding means poor sperm). The scarcer the tiger the more poachers chase it and want to kill it. It is a perversity of human nature. We simply refuse to look beyond the end of our nose and ask what is best for us in the long term and there is an awful lot of ignorance in the world and I am not criticising anyone. Except the governments and authorities of the countries in which the tiger finds its habitat. But in the West they have done their bit to eradicated wildlife too.

For me, another factor in the continuing demise of the tiger is something said by Chief Wildlife Warden M C Malakar in respect of a man eating tiger. He said that there was no way out but to kill the tiger. He also said something that sends a chill down my spine:

"It is not advisable to push back a tiger to its habitat once it turns a maneater," he added. As the tiger habitat shrinks due to humankind's activities the tiger is forced to attack humans because it is forced into close proximity and its prey has also lost habitat so it has lost habitat and prey. The tiger should and could have been tranquillised but the crowd gathered around it agitated the tiger and the only way forward was to kill it. Same old story. The ignorance is staggering. But I blame the Warden. He was in charge and he failed to save this rare tiger. He failed to manage the people.

But I have to understand the people of the area (Kaziranga National Park (KNP). See map:


View Larger Map

I have made another post about this park. The post concerned poisoning tigers. I feel there is something suspicious going on in and around this nature reserve. The people living near it clearly want rid of the tiger and they are succeeding. I just feel there is some hidden agenda, which is leading to the tiger being exposed to human activity that jeopardises it.



The Tiger is Doomed to Home page

Tiger Patterns and Tiger Stripes

I have just done a tiger quiz in which one question concerned the tiger's stripes and the answer was that they are all unique like our finger prints. Tiger patterns and tiger stripes are a great way to identify individual tigers and it isn't like finger prints that are very small. A tiger's stripes are very pronounced and they carry a high contrast between the stripe and the ground color making them stand out.

So, we can identify a tiger by his or her pattern. But how do we get to see a tiger? They are naturally very secretive unless forced to approach us through lack of habitat caused by us (see for example cheetah habitat). Well, as we know, there are things called camera traps. These are cameras that are set up and left to be fired automatically by the tiger when it passes in front of the camera. Great, but the photographs will be from different angles and so on. This means a careful study, I suspect of photographs of known animals and a careful comparison made of the newly photographed tiger. A time consuming business, no doubt. However, bearing in mind these factors:

• the importance of conserving the tiger;
• the great importance in reducing trafficking in tiger parts including skins;
• the increased use of camera traps and therefore a larger database of images,

the identification of tigers by a better method was seen as desirable.

A smart bunch of scientists have come up with a computer program based on two algorithms (complex formula - "algorithm is a finite sequence of instructions, an explicit, step-by-step procedure for solving a problem, often used for calculation and data processing" - src: Wikipedia) that can compare images scanned in to a computer with images already on the computer in the form of a database to make an assessment as to similarity and to take into account all the variables as to image quality and position etc. a barrier to accurate identification.

As I understand it the system has a high level of reliability in matching similar patterns under what is variable conditions and angles. The creators of the system:

• Lex Hiby
• Phil Love
• Narendra Patil,
• N. Samba Kumar
• Arjun M Gopalaswamy
• K. Ullas Karanth,

....say that it is "almost certain to place a matching individual from the catalogue at or near the top of the list of similarity scores". Anything that can help in the management of the rare wildcats must be good. I often read stories of poorly assessed population numbers. Recently the Indian authorities were shocked to discover that their estimates for the tiger population was much higher than was in fact the case. It was thought that the tiger population was 3,500 in the 1990s, an increase due to India's Tiger Project and the establishment of reserves. A more recent census indicates about 1,4oo. The reduction is due to poaching (to feed the insatiable China tiger body part market not doubt) (see also Poisoning tigers and Cats and Corruption). The monitoring of tiger skins through this computer program must be extremely valuable as the skin lives on, intact, after the tiger has been killed. [note: no criticism is intended of any culture or country in talking of poisoning tigers, for example. I am discussing things plainly that is all.]

I would be very interested to know how or if this computer program has been used in apprehending the traffickers in tiger parts. Thanks to Biology Letters.



Tiger Patterns and Tiger Stripes to Bengal Tiger Facts

Tiger Patterns and Tiger Stripes -- Photo is by SubyRex and published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License

Cat Inbreeding Means Poor Sperm

Cat Inbreeding Means Poor Sperm -- Yup, I am back to some semi-pornographic stuff with a serious, very serious undertone. If you want to see some more popular animal science/porn, you might like to read and see cats mating or lions mating. The sperm quality of endangered, and therefore low population species, is of reduced quality. This concerns, for example, the cheetah and many more wildcats in the wild, see below and please note I have selected wild cats and the domestic cat for discussion for convenience only, the thesis covers any animal. However the cheetah and domestic cat were involved in this research.


Endangered cheetah - photo © digitalART (artct45) modified slightly as allowed under the creative commons license

There are more abnormal sperm and less "motile" sperm in endangered species. This would also, it seems, apply to small populations in a fragmented habitat (e.g. Florida Cougar and Critically Endangered Iberian Lynx). The reduced sperm quality could explain "reductions in reproductive function in inbred populations" as the numbers of abnormal sperm and motile sperm are key factors in fertility.

In endangered species, with small populations inbreeding is obviously more likely. Also from a human perspective the scarcer and rarer a prized animal becomes (for its body parts) the more likely it is that it will be trapped, poisoned and skinned and butchered etc. This then is a "double whammy" on the chances of survival of already endangered species (of wildcat my area of interest). To the above we can add of course habitat loss and habitat fragmentation due to human activity (usually commercial) and it almost seems that the scarcer a wildcat becomes the faster the extinction process for than animal. It is a bit like global warming, it speeds up the nearer the "end game".

I guess this is not really news. We (people) do have rules on marriage after all that forbid inbreeding. In certain human cultures it is common to marry cousins. In these cultures there is a higher proportion of genetic illnesses. The same problem exists in domestic cat breeding. See Genetic Diseases in Purebred Cats, for example.

What happens in domestic cat breeding is that inbreeding depression results in defective and usually hidden recessive genes ("deleterious alleles" was the term used by the researchers) coming to the fore and causing illnesses. Also the immune system can be damaged. This is called "inbreeding depression", which can be defined as, "The loss of general health and 'vigor' that is sometimes a characteristic of animals that are inbred." The current research supports the fact that cat inbreeding means poor sperm.

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Cat Inbreeding Means Poor Sperm -- Here is some detail on this research. It indicates that Cat Inbreeding Means Poor Sperm:

The exact title of the research paper is "Reduced heterozygosity impairs sperm quality in endangered mammals" by John L Fitzpatrick* and Jonathan P Evans. Dr John Fitzpatrick is from the University of Western Australia's Center for Evolutionary Biology. The term heterozygosity means "Having different alleles at one or more corresponding chromosomal loci." (src: Free Dictionary). Reduced heterozygosity also means increases in homozygosity. See heterozygous and homozygous definitions.

The animals that were studied in this research project and their numbers:

• (1) Florida panther,
• (2) Indian lion,
• (3) cheetah,
• (4) black-footed ferret,
• (5) Ngorongoro Crater lion,
• (6) black bear,
• (7) South American panther,
• (8) margays,
• (9) tigrinas,
• (10) red wolf,
• (11) jaguar,
• (12) giant panda,
• (13) ocelot,
• (14) brown bear,
• (15) European rabbit,
• (16) Serengeti lions,
• (17) howler monkey,
• (18) bison,
• (19) domestic cat,
• (20) coyotes.

Chart showing the relationship between the proportion of (a) abnormal and (b) motile sperm in endangered (filed circles and solid line) and non-endangered (open circles and broken line) mammals. The chart is copyright The Royal Society and published on this page of Biology letters: Endangered animals and sperm quality (my words). The numbers on the chart relate to the numbers animals above the chart.

Cat Inbreeding Means Poor Sperm to Inbreeding is the Curse of Big Cats

Cat Inbreeding Means Poor Sperm - Photo published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License

Tiger Quiz

Here is a tiger quiz that you can use at a party (?) or once you have got the answers, use it to show off your superior knowledge! You can see the responses on this webpage in the form of a spreadsheet:

TIGER QUIZ RESULTS PAGE

Here are the questions (the answers are at the base of the post) - When you have submitted the quiz will grey over. Go to the top and click on the results page or back to quiz:

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I hope you enjoy this tiger quiz. It comes courtesy Discovery Channel and Google for the form. The answers to this tiger quiz but please test yourself, why bother otherwise?:

1. While Amur (also known as Siberian) tigers are the world's largest, with males growing nearly 11 feet long, they have the fewest stripes of all tigers.
2. The night vision of tigers is about six times as good as the night vision of most humans.
3. Tigers in the wild are thought to live on average to about age 10. But tigers in zoos often live to be 20 years old.
4. Tiger cubs are born blind and weigh only about 2 to 3 pounds. Tiger cubs live on milk for six to eight weeks.
5. The particularly rough tongue of the Amur, or Siberian, tiger helps it to peel skin and flesh from bone.
6. Tigers are indigenous only to the continent of Asia
7. No two tigers have the same pattern of stripes
8. About 2 million years ago, primitive tigers were already spreading from eastern Asia into other parts of the continent.
9. An adult tiger can eat as much as 60 pounds of fresh meat after a kill.
10. Bengal tigers seem to like water, and not only will hunt there but sometimes rest in water to keep cool.

On last point. The tiger is endangered and there is a real risk that this most popular of animals will become extinct in the wild. I really fear for the welfare of this animal. Knowing about the tiger may help to protect it as so very many people do not, through no fault of their own know enough about the tiger. The phrase out of sight out of mind applies and while the tiger is out of mind it is becoming extinct.



Tiger Quiz to Bengal Tiger Facts