There is the belief in traditional Chinese medicines that body parts from the tiger can be used as an ingredient to cure certain ailments.
Tigers Dilemma & its Conservation
None of this has been proven.
New Delhi: More than five million school children from 15 countries including India, will learn about the plight of tigers through fun-filled educational activities organised part of the Animal Action Week (AAW), an annual animal-focussed event coinciding with the wildlife week. A global initiative of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), in India, it is coordinated by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).
Sadly, tigers are killed for their skins and also for their body parts.
We need to stop the death of this magnificent creature NOW, as it is the guardian of the forest, along with those who depend on the forest for their lives.
A tiger a day is being killed in the wild.
India has far fewer tigers living in the wild than had been thought, initial results from a major new study suggest. The Wildlife Institute of India census showed tiger numbers falling in some states by two-thirds in five years. The world asks China to maintain its ban on the trade of tiger parts, and to dissuade people from eating them.
Tigers may be one of the world’s most evocative — and threatened — animal species, but there is this weird idea, peculiar to some Chinese, that they are best for the pot, be it for cooking or wine-making or as medicine. Not unlike South Africa’s canned lions, about 5000 of the animals are awaiting just such a fate on tiger farms in China. But the grotesque industry seems to have been thwarted once again.
At a meeting in The Hague, member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) called on China not to lift its 14-year-old ban on trade in tiger parts. They also urged the country to phase out its commercial tiger farms and to offer tigers better protection in the wild.
A statement from the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) says the resolution was strongly supported ‘by three other countries with wild tiger populations.- India, Nepal and Bhutan — as well as the United States. Dr Susan Lieberman, the director of the WWF’s global species programme, noted after the passing of the resolution that China had said in the past that it would not lift its ban on trade in tiger parts without listening to scientific opinion from around the world. “The world spoke today,” she said.
Investors in China’s massive tiger-breeding centres have been pressing the country’s government to lift its 14-year-old ban on trade in tiger parts so they can legally sell products such as tiger-bone wine and tiger meat. The facilities have acknowledged stockpiling tiger carcasses in the hopes that the ban would be lifted.
Jan Vertefeuille, the communications manager of the WWF’s tiger programme, says all parts of a tiger are valued on the black market. But in China in particular, the bones are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat arthritis and pain. Eating tiger meat is seen as a status symbol. It suggests you are consuming the power of the tiger. Tiger-bone wine is made by leaving a tiger carcass immersed in rice wine for years, the brew is supposed to boost health. Some ethnic communities wear tiger skins for certain rituals, but the practice has declined. So has tiger bone’s use in medicine.
A WWF statement says traditional medicine practitioners have found mole-rat bone to be better Once more, as with South Africa’s canned-lion industry, one of the big headaches is what to do with the estimated 5000 tigers held in captivity if the breeding farms are to be phased out. It is said to be practically impossible to introduce captive-bred tigers into the wild. They cannot fend for themselves and they pose a danger to humans.
Vertefeuflie says: “We don’t know what will happen to the animals, many conservation and animal welfare groups are ready to advise the Chinese government on what to do once it agrees to phase out the farms. But they haven’t agreed to that yet.” He points out that it is very expensive to feed tigers. It can therefore be expected that the farms will start cutting back on their breeding programmes once they realize that the ban on trade in tiger parts is not going to be lifted.“But ultimately it is the responsibility of the owners and the government, which allowed this mass-scale breeding, to solve the problem of the 5000 captive tigers.”
Steven Broad, the executive director of Traffic International, a joint programme of the WWF and the World Conservation Union to monitor wildlife trade, says the danger of allowing a legal market in tiger products in China is that it would increase demand and allow criminals to launder products obtained from tigers poached in the wild. “Tiger numbers in the wild are so precarious that we cannot risk any actions that could jeopardize them further,” he said.
The WWF reckons only about 5000 to 7000 tigers remain In the wild, mostly in isolated pockets spread across increasingly fragmented forests stretching from India to southeastern China and from the Russian Far East to Sumatra, Indonesia. Across its range, the animal is poisoned, shot, trapped and snared, mostly for the illegal wildlife trade. Hunters, traders and poor local residents, whose main means of subsistence comes from the forest, are wiping it out, as they are doing to the animal’s natural prey.
While poaching for trade remains a serious danger to its survival, its biggest long-term threat is loss of habitat and depletion of its natural prey Commercial plantations have replaced a lot of tiger habitat in several tropical countries. Three of the world’s nine tiger sub-species — the Bali, Caspian and Javan tigers — are already extinct. A fourth — the South China tiger — could soon join them. Some scientists already consider it “functionally extinct”.
The WWF says the best hope for tigers lies in creating priority areas. It has devised a strategy that identifies seven focal tiger landscapes where the chances of long- term tiger conservation are best, and four additional areas where conservation opportunities are good.
In each of the focal landscapes, the WWF aims to establish and manage effective tiger conservation areas, reduce the poaching of tigers and their prey, eliminate the trade in tiger parts and products, create incentives that will encourage local communities and others to support tiger conservation, and build capacity for tiger conservation.
An article in BioScience journal quotes tiger experts as saying that habitat loss and intense poaching of tigers and their prey, combined with inadequate government efforts to maintain tiger populations, have resulted in a dramatic reduction in tiger numbers. They now occupy just 7 percent of their historical range. Vertefeuile says the depletion of tigers has even given rise to concern in India for the last 350 Asiatic lions, kept in the Gir Lion Sanctuary. The fear is that poachers will target the lions because there are so few tigers left to go after.
Tiger Awareness was formed in 1998 by a voluntary group to make the public more aware of the plight of the tiger. The organisation gives free talks to schools, groups and parties. They believe that if forestry departments and local villagers work together both animal and people will benefit. The organisation recently visited the village Ranthambhore, in Rajastan, India. They have partners based in Kolkata, where they work together on Sundarbans projects.
New Delhi: More than five million school children from 15 countries including India, will learn about the plight of tigers through fun-filled educational activities organised part of the Animal Action Week (AAW), an annual animal-focussed event coinciding with the wildlife week. A global initiative of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), in India, it is coordinated by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). IFAW-AAW 2010 with the theme ‘Born to be Wild: Saving the majestic tiger’ focuses on spreading awareness on tiger conservation. Habitat loss and poaching have reduced wild tiger populations from about 100,000 wild tigers in 1900 to a few as 3,000 worldwide today. “Education is so important to our work saving animals, like tigers, in crisis around the world,” said Fred O’Regan, IFAW President and CEO. “The future will be brighter for both animals and people if we can educate and inspire our children to take action on these issues.” The participating schools have been provided free activity packs including a documentary film and information booklets that describe the world of tigers, threats faced by them in a number of tiger range countries including India and conservation initiatives being undertaken. These activity packs are available in English as well as in Hindi.
“We have sent these activity packs to over 2500 schools across the country, and many people have volunteered to help organise these activities in the schools in their respective areas, for which we are thankful. Apart from activities like discussions, essay-writing, quiz, etc, students can participate in the nation-wide painting competition; two of the best entries will be selected to be awarded the IFAW Young Achievers Award,” said John Kunju Kunju, WTI. This year’s tigers theme coincides with the Year of the Tiger on the Chinese lunar calendar and the UN International Year for Youth, which aims to give young people a voice in global issues.
As part of the Youth Year, IFAW is launching a global Youth Voices for Tigers campaign to bring the voices of the world’s children to the Global Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia this November. A mosaic of messages from young people worldwide will be presented at the summit, comprising a collective roar for action to ensure that the next generation does not grow up in a world without tigers.
A multi-lingual website (ifaw.org/youthroar) offers the opportunity for public participation by uploading video messages and images from children around the world, such as a call to action, question, thought, poem, song, painting or even a simple but passionate growl of support for protecting the last wild tigers.
IFAW AAW 2010 is the 18th Animal Action Week globally and is the eighth in India since the project was launched in India in 2003.
One of India's main tiger parks - Panna National Park - has admitted it no longer has any tigers
Panna National Park is situated in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh at a distance of around 57 km from Khajuraho. The region famous for its diamonds is also home to some of the best wildlife species in India. Established as a National Reserve in 1981 and made part of Project Tiger in 1994, Panna is one of the country's youngest tiger reserves. It is spread over 542.67 sq km it was created from the hunting reserves of the princely states of Panna,Chhatarpur and Bijawar.The north and south Panna Forest Divisions were declared as the Gangau Wildlife sanctuary.
The Panna National Park's topography is a splendid mosaic of plateaus, gorges, vast expanses of teak forests and savannah grasslands. It comprises the upper Talgaon Plateau and the middle Hinouta Plateau being fed by Ken River which runs for about 55 km within the sanctuary. From safaris to boat rides from spotting crocodiles to tigers and sloth bears Panna offers many exciting opportunities to the wildlife lover. One can glimpse many birds from the boat. The dense teak forests in Panna add to its many charms and lend it a wonderfully mistic touch.
Panna Tiger reserve is home of Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), leopard (Panthera pardus), wild dog (Cuon alpinus), wolf (Canis lupus), hyaena (Hyaena hyaena) and caracal (Felus caracal) and smaller cats.Panna claims to host as many as 35 tigers. The other animals are Sloth bear in the rock escarpments and undisturbed vales. Many animals found include sambar, spotted deer, chinkara, nilgai, langur, wild dogs.
Cycling for awareness of tigers
Recently, five bicyclists from United Kingdom and South Africa have started a three-day long cycling mission from the Italian embassy in Dhaka to the ITC Sonar Hotel in Kolkata in a bid to raise awareness about the Sundarbans tigers.
Their journey is the climax of the 'Ride of the Tiger' campaign, a two-month effort to raise public awareness of the threatened future of tigers in the Sundarbans. The five riders are Massimo Franco, Chris Roy, Henry Churchill, Keith Mullan and Max Baldwin.
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