Five minutes ago I finished watching the film Two Brothers on cable. This movie which came out in 2004 is about two tiger cubs that become separated when they are young and then reunited in adulthood. It is only a fictional account but it totally makes you root for the tigers.
Set not so long ago in a distant land, the film follows the adventures of twin tiger cubs–one shy and gentle, the other bold and fierce–who are born among the temple ruins of an exotic jungle. However, on a fateful day, the brothers are separated by fate. The bold brother is sold off to a circus, where homesickness and living in a cage rob him of his spirit. Meanwhile, the shy cub becomes the beloved companion of the governor’s lonely young son, until an accident forces the family to give him away to a man who resolves to break his gentle nature and turn him into a fighter for sport. When they are fully grown the brothers find themselves reunited–but as forced enemies, pitted against each other. [Link]
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At the end of the movie, just before the credits roll, the filmmakers relate the message that a century ago there were 100,000 of these beautiful cats in the wild and that today there are fewer than 5000 remaining. I turned off the television, turned on my computer, and within two minutes I randomly found this new article in Time Asia that describes how a bad situation is getting worse:
One of the difficulties with killing tigers is that they scream. Snaring them is simple enough, says Nitin Desai, a conservationist at the Wildlife Protection Society of India–you set a few iron traps near a game-park watering hole, then wait for a tiger to take a wrong step. But when the trap’s jagged metal teeth sink into its paw, the tiger howls–an alarm that can rouse a sleepy park ranger. So, a smart poacher will plunge a spear down the trapped animal’s throat and tear out its vocal chords; then, at his leisure, he can poison or electrocute the cat–or, if the buyer doesn’t mind a bullet hole in the pelt, simply shoot it. [Link]
I felt that coming across this article just minutes after seeing the movie was a sign, and so I thought that blogging it was the next logical step 🙂
Imagine if the U.S. let the bald eagle go extinct, or China the Panda Bear. There is no animal that better captures the romance of India than the tiger. And yet, as the article points out, the Indian government isn’t putting enough resources behind the problem and is acting too slowly to make any difference. Perhaps no amount of money can solve the problem. Evolution is vicious that way and we are in the midst of one of the largest mass extinctions in geologic history, caused by the most ruthless predator that Earth has ever known.
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Picture of a white tiger that I took in the wild last month. “The Wild” being the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Safari Park. |
Though India remains the world’s last significant sanctuary for wild tigers, the numbers there are dwindling fast. The country’s wild tiger population has dropped from about 100,000 in the 19th century to as few as 1,200 to 1,800 today. In another five years this feline population could plunge to a level–around 500 cats–where in many parts of India it would no longer be able to sustain itself. At that point, they would survive almost exclusively in zoolike safari parks. “India is letting the tiger slip through its fingers,” says Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. “It’s going to be one of the biggest conservation debacles the world has ever known…” [Link]
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Maybe Razib knows more about this but I am pretty sure that once a population gets too small there isn’t enough genetic material in the pool to prevent errors in the genes from piling up and limiting the evolutionary potential and growth of a species.
The rest of the article is just depressing. I wish sometimes that India could marshall its resources as fast as the Chinese seem to be able to. I know that in the long run a democracy will outperform an autocratic form of government every time, but these Tigers don’t have that long.
I wonder if there is anything we can do as mere bloggers. Maybe we should have a day of the tiger where every desi blogger does something to get the Indian government’s and media’s attention. When some blogs got censored recently the desi blogosphere was able to harass the government enough to get a fix. Surely this is as important?
I’m just in a pissed off and defiant mood right now. You know what would be even better? If a small cabal of India’s top tycoons decided that they would take it upon themselves to save the tiger for the sake of India’s pride where the government has failed. Let’s see the private sector show what it can really do for India now that it has shown what it can do for India’s people. Also see what Botswana has done as a good example of success.
See related posts: Mystery shrouds dwindling tiger population, Saving Simba – the FME Approach, Salty Tigers Are No Match For A Woman, They’re Lucky Champawat isn’t Alive
The description of the slaughter is just sickening. and i agree with this
but what can a few bloggers do about it?
Maybe Razib knows more about this but I am pretty sure that once a population gets too small there isnÂ’t enough genetic material in the pool to prevent recessive genes from piling up and limiting the evolutionary potential and growth of a species.
you hit it right. this is the raison detre of the field of conservation genetics.
conservation geneticists talk about something called the 50/500 rule. 50 breeding individuals are needed for short term genetic health, 500 for long term health. the reality is that many conservation geneticists believe that 5,000 is a better number for the long term, because there is going to be variation in pop. size simply due to environmental fluctuations and the low bound tends to set a bottleneck on genetic health (the long term effective pop. is the harmonic mean).
the rule above applies to breeding animals. the reality is that the % of animals that contributes to the gene pool every generation is lower than the number that show up in a census, so it is probably prudent to assume that the effective population is around ~500, which means that we are already in the “danger zone” for long term genetic health of the indian tiger. population sampling variance is (pq)/(2N), where N = breeding population, and p = frequency of on allele and q the other one (1 – p). as you can see, the variance increases A LOT as the N drops, so even really bad alleles can jump up in frequency and start dragging on fitness. there is then a process called mutational meltdown which can occur as the reduced fitness reduces population, further increasing variance and all sorts of deleterious alleles can fix and drag the population down to extinction.
happy times….
p.s., actually, the tigers in the wild are already in a danger zone, population substructure fragments in the gene pools, so the local N’s are no doubt low enough to induce subpopulation extinction simply because of reduced fertility due to unmasking of lethal alleles.
I was just going to say. I just read that article this very morning. This sort of mass slaughter makes me embarassed to be Indian and sick to the stomach. Did you know that the British first began and encouraged conservation efforts? The real butchering only started after Independence. The apathy in India directed towards the conservation of wildlife in general and especially towards the tiger is appalling. It’s all good and well to expound on the economic boom in India, but what price do we have to pay for it?
ahem. excuse my ignorance. i never read the last paragraph.
Abhi,
I have been to Botswana. They have done great with soft foot-print tourism.
There is some talk of doing same thing in India, only talk. May be, next week we all should blog about Tiger. Conservation in a place like India can only happen through some form of tourism attached that outperforms poaching.
Cooperation with local communities to provide sustainable development for the people as well as the wildlife has proven succesful in many countries, including Botswana and Zimbabwe. Why can’t we apply the same approach towards Indian wildlife?
Meena,
In some sense, Botswana example is a very ideal case. They had fairly large piece of land pristine, in 1960s they discovered diamond mines, and then some good goverance made sure that they are parts of country that are untouched. Currently, tourism after mining provides most income to them. For a bushman, their wildlife is their pride and income too. In Botswana, in the bushes, they will not even let throw a candy wrapper or water bottle. They had some problems with electric fenses though at the perimeters.
A place like Sudarbans (West Bengal/ Bangladesh) is over-crowded with humans to begin with. One thing India can do (my travel agents in South Africa told us that they are talking to Indians) is that they built expensive, high-end resorts in the area. It brings enough income that the local population is a stake-holder in saving the tigers.
there is also the demand side issue. no more “bhai-bhai” guy….
This is kind of dicey. I really think that it should be people with deeper connections to India than sentimental attachment should take the lead on this (i.e. people raised there or whatever) or people who are tiger experts or whatnot. An approach like Meena’s, which involves local communities, is probably the best approach.
By the way, if you want to be terrified of tigers (and think about a lot of these issues), Hungry Tide is an absolutely great read about tigers, dolphins, the Sundarbans, refugees, land, ecology, nature, various desi identities, and the balance among all these things.
Awwright …. woot woot …. great topic!
Some folks above say what can a few bloggers do?
ADOPT A TIGER Well, for a start, SepiaMutiny.com can actually adopt a Tiger (or Cub) …. and get itself a worthwhile Mascot
Please go to
http://www.worldwildlife.org/forms/adoptionCenter_1.cfm
World Wildlife Fund has the credibility, the presence and gets enough press to make a difference …. and WWF can use all the help it can get from articulate bloggers around the world …. just the fact that Indian bloggers around the planet are pooling their resources to ‘adopt’ tigers will be newsworthy enough to make the inside pages of important newspapers …
SUPPORT THE FOOT WARRIORS But what next? A few newspaper articles, a few adopted cubs …. where will that go? The next step for the prominent bloggers will be to start a conversation with the guys who can and are making a difference. Support these guys, get them press, get them the support they need to make a real difference. These are guys whose lifework is what you are talking about here.
Give them a voice. Get them the limelight. Holla for these folks.
See here
http://www.worldwildlife.org/tigers/conservationists.cfm
BARE MINIMUM Don’t want to do as much? Well, at least visit this page and do something:
http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/action/index.asp?ms=wwf_header
Just make some noise …. PodCasts, Blogs, whatever … Support the Good Guys … at least be on the team!
And sale of co-branded merchandise is always a handy solution …. t-shirts, mugs and whathaveyous
The inbreeding thing is a big issue for Asiatic Lions, all of the present population in the wild is decended from 13 individuals found in western India in the early 1900s when the Nawab of the region where they were found gave them complete protection.
Also most of the tiger poaching in India is supported by millitant groups, primarily the Naxalites who live in the jungles and tiger pelt industry as a source of fundingsee here, not ordinary poor villagers as the article seems to allude.
Absolutely!
Romance and iconic status notwithstanding, it definitely helps to accentuate the beauty of these creatures with real images – I don’t think Sher Khan invokes anybody’s interest or sympathy.
I wonder if there are already any eco-tours to the Sunderbans that specifically focus on these tigers…browsing
Hmmm…thinking about tiger brand management a bit further – any being that’s considered of the devil is at a disadvantage that cuddly panda bears or fierce-but-noble eagles don’t share:
When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Hmm. I wonder whether the tiger’s association with a fierce-but-maternal ideal helps or hurts?
(Forgive the double-post)
Hmmm…thinking about tiger brand management a bit further – any being that’s considered of the devil can’t evoke the same sympathy/pride that cuddly pandas or noble eagles can:
When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Hmm. I wonder whether the tiger’s association with
How about Tiger-cams in the forest? So the world (& bloggers) can monitor poacher & tiger traffic? eg. Indians during the day and Americans during the night (Infrared cams?). Bored office workers, housewifes, little school children, Bloggers watching day and night to save the tiger!
I would totally watch that!
That\’s like almost every Amitabh Bachchan movie. Did they get seperated in the Kumbh Mela? Did one become the good tiger and the other rampage through valleys killing innocents?
While efforts to save tigers in India should be addressed, I think it is a shame that polio is making a comeback at alarming rates in India, yet we don’t see “a small cabal of IndiaÂ’s top tycoons take it upon themselves to do anything about it.”
I don’t think there should necessarily be a ‘choice’ between people and animals though.
And really, isn’t it the worst disgrace if the Indian people permit the tiger to go extinct?
Many don’t realise just what a wonderful biodiversity India harbours. Next to the big cats are most prominent India’s birds, which include the Great Indian Bustard, and several of the world’s most beautiful pheasants.
Word. I hate that type of argument. Its the same way when someone says “we should put more resources into space exploration,” someone says “what about the poor people om Earth.” One has nothing to do with the other.
To be clear, I never insinuated that there should be a choice between the two. Being the largest/worst predator out there, we have to address our total impact on the earth.
Aren’t there more tigers in captivity (Zoos, private collectors, whatever) than the wild?
Tigers breed pretty easily, so sustaining the population is directly related to being pro-active in protecting them. Poaching tigers isn’t a result of poor men trying to make a livelyhood. These guys are smugglers and know exactly what to do.
Kill a tiger? Life in prison, or if you want to go Singapore on them, the death penalty. I don’t know why, but I absolutely HATE poachers. Not legal hunters of animals not in any danger of extinction, not populations in conflict with the environment (farmers moving in on jungles), etc. Poachers get me riled up.
I was reading a magazine (National Geographic was it?) about radical enviromentalists who launched themselves in damaging ships whale hunting (‘scientific research’ utter bullshit). Ballsy.
Killing endangered species for profit drives me nuts. Maybe its still the WWF (World Wildlife Fund for Nature, NOT wrestling) in me.
What is the market for tiger pelts? Perhaps if you focus on the consumers rather than the poachers, you might have an added effect. If I recall correctly, this strategy was used in East Africa to some success.
China is the market. India doesn’t have any influence there. Focusing on the consumers won’t do any good.
Aren’t there more tigers in captivity (Zoos, private collectors, whatever) than the wild?
i think this is true for the great siberian tiger, but not the indian tiger.
China’s role in decimating India’s wildlife (in terms of demand for animal parts for their bullshit ‘traditonal medicine’) needs a lot more attention (and intervention). As an aside, what amazes me is that in China, if you WANT tiger penis powder in a bottle, you actually GET tiger penis powder in a bottle. Can’t they just fake people out like Indian merchants would do and just put something else in there? In India, as another post mentioned, even the bottled mineral water is fake. China should learn from us. But seriously, China is responsible for a lot of the demand for rare animal parts.
(in terms of demand for animal parts for their bullshit ‘traditonal medicine’)
Or aphrodisiacs.
I thought a lot of stuff is for potency related cures.
The government of India started Project Tiger a while back. I wonder what happened. I dont know what’s the current state of Project Tiger. Chinese medicine wants to cure everything from Erectile Dysfunction to Cancer using the tiger’s penis 🙂 What’s there obsession with the tiger’s penis, is beyond me.
The Time article I feature discusses Project Tiger and how it is an absolute failure.
It may sound draconian but I think the only solution is for India to declare certain areas as dedicated wildlife sanctuaries, and remove all villages from those areas. Settle the people somewhere else, compensate them for lost land, whatever, but there should be minimal (and very closely monitored) human presence in those sanctuaries. And poachers should be dealt with very harshly.
You can hate them all you want, but you still have to find a way to deal with suggestions like this and the authoritarianism they contain:
Saurav:
Yes, I guess you could call it authoritarian. But are you more concerned with the rights of a relatively small population of marginal farmers than about the extinction of entire species of native fauna? I understand that ‘ideally’ there should not have to be a choice between the animals and the people. BUT we need practical, workable solutions that are realistic in the Indian context. Or you can sit around arguing about it for the next 20 years only to find there’s no wildlife left to save.
On another note…
The only time a charity declined to accept money from me was sometime in the mid 1990s (don’t remember the exact date) when I received a letter from the World Wildlife Foundation to whose Project Tiger fund I had been contributing for many years. My contribution was earmarked for the project’s work in India. The letter didn’t explain anything except that the effort had been discontinued. I called the organization and they said reluctantly that the money wasn’t going “where it was supposed to.” Which I interpreted as corruption on the Indian side.
Some level headed authoritarianism and paradigm shift through education may be called for to ensure the survival of wild life. The human centered bottom line of all policy decisions is much too weighted against animals. I am sure it is not beyond the scope of the government and local communities to come up with an equitable solution. The poachers on the other hand should be shown no mercy. How about throwing them to the tigers – unarmed? I am not kidding.
Someone mentioned The Hungry Tide in which the Royal Bengal Tiger has a major presence both in its real and mythical incarnations. The most heartbreaking episode in the book unfolds when a hapless tiger strays into a village to capture a calf and the villagers find out – with gruesome outcome. When wild animals who must kill for food, live close to man, the animal is always the loser. Since animals cannot leave their natural habitat, it must be made possible for man to move.
While there is no doubt that animals do better among affluent populations, the choice of saving them in less wealthy nations need not be a zero sum game. Couldn’t this blog serve as a launching pad for a fund raiser of sorts after a suitably adept and efficient agency involved towards this effort has been identified?
Perhaps. I am not sure money is the answer though. The adept and efficient part is the answer and I am inclined to agree with Amitabh’s draconian measures.
I work on the assumption that if it’s important to you than you should be able to convince people that it should be important to them as well (which is why I appreciated what Meena said above). However, when all is said and done, yes, I might side with the farmers when given a zero sum game ;the problem is systemic, and saving one species, no matter how attached one might be to it, is not a replacement for actually addressing the systemic problems (which the very people concerned about tigers might be contributing to). Though it might be a good start, if you go about it the right way.
As an alternative to your suggestion, consider the approach to environmental problems taken by Green Grants Fund. I don’t know much about the foundation, but they seem to have some ggod ideas.
Reading this post, I posted this topic on my college mailing list yesterday, and have already received a few suggestions, which I summarize below:
These two suggestions can be complementary, attacking the problem on two different fronts, as it were.
The first theory has merit on a long-term basis. If we can find a way to neutralize the biggest market for tiger products, China, the reduced demand will disincentivize (is that a word?) poaching. More realistically, we can improve the economic interest in a living tiger through tiger safaris, breeding them locally and exporting some of them to national parks in Western countries, etc. This way, tiger conservation can be a viable and revenue-generating initiative for the Indian government. We can put together a business plan and send it to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, the official body. However, given their past record, I wouldn’t be surprised if the plan ends up gathering dust or providing fodder for urban wildlife – termites and rats.
The second suggestion can be implemented more readily. From the article, poaching seems to be the key component here. Scoping out local NGO’s who have the boots on the ground and helping them (financially and P.R-wise) expose poachers and their partners in crime is something we can do without much effort. We have the unique advantage of being part of an influential community whose voice and earning power makes an exponential difference back home. As with every new initiative in India, this has to come from citizens like us, not from the insipid Indian government. Here are a few NGO’s that we can support:
http://www.indiantiger.org/wildlife-organizations/
“”I don’t think there should necessarily be a ‘choice’ between people and animals though.””
“Word. I hate that type of argument.”
Double word.
So we can legally breed pigs and cows and chicken, and slaughter them in the hunderds of thousands every day. But kill some tigers and the collective anguish of the world will descend upon you. I don’t support killing any living creature, but am I the only one who sees a whole lot of crocodile tears being shed?
There are approx 1.2B Indians on planet earth at the moment but only 11000 Tuvaluans. If two homicidal maniacs kills an Indian and a Tuvaluan each, is the latter committing a greater crime?
Only if the latter then proceeds to consume some Tuvaluan Penis Soup to enhance his virility;)
Prohias:
The issue isn’t about the morality of killing animals; it’s about the tiger going extinct.
Amitabh, I know. My point is why is it a crime to kill an animal going extinct while to kill an equally beautiful animal that isn’t is, pardon the pun, all kosher? While I obviously recognize that causing a species to be extinct is a serious concern, I also believe it is inconsistent to prosecute one and legalize the other.
See here.
I THINK WE SHOULD SAVE THE TIGERS BECAUSE WITH OUT THEM WHAT WOULD THE WORLD BE LIKE i THINK WE SHOULD SAVE THE TIGERS BECAUSE THEY ARE WONDERFUL PIECE OF GODS CREATION
The tigers of this world are dying and no one is listening to their cry. There was once 8 subspecies of tigers since then the number has disinagrated only 5. The Bali tiger Disappeared in the 1940’s, the Caspian tiger disappeared in the early1970’s, and there has been no sign of the Javan Tiger since 1980. The species that remain such as the Bengal tiger -[our school mascot]-and the Siberian tiger, are quickly disappearing. Little over a Century ago there were over a 100,000 tiger in the world that number has dwindled down to about 7,000.statistics show that this wonderful cat may disappear within 15 years. In the 1900s the upper Class of India would hunt the tiger for pleasure. Russia would make hunting tigers a part of military Training to build up courage. In the 20th century tigers were slaughtered right and left because they were a nascence to the farmers china and Russia offered a bounty for their annihilation. As for today, the hunting and killing of these beautiful creatures is illegal. Yet they are still being slaughter by poachers. Catching a tiger is easy enough if you know what your doing. A poacher will lay a trap for the tiger and when it gets caught the poacher will stick a spear down its throat and rip pout its vocal cords to keep it from crying out and alerting the patrol of its capture. However, even though it is the poachers who are physically killing the tigers, the market is the one who is truly driving them into extinction. A tiger skin will sell for $10,000 and the bones and other parts of the tiger are sold for medicine. The selling of illegal animal products will make about 1.7 billion a year. This shows how much the market encourages the killing of tigers. If something is not done to help these animals the paintings of our mascot and all other tigers will be a few of the things that show that the tigers ever existed. But what can we do for something that is happening halfway around the world we can raise awareness of what is going on, if you know someone who buys illegal animal products get them to stop. If we can stop the markets desire for these tigers they may yet have a future
i hate it that a wonderful aniaml like that would ever be killed by a person. someone that would kill a tiger is an evil person.
There are many questions why the tigers here have been killing so many in surronding indian settlements. Some think the salty water, some think that tigers have gotten used to human flesh, form bodies drifting to the tigers from common cyclones that kill 1 hundreds, or floods they catch a few in their wrath. Another theory is that humans are just much easier to hunt in the swampy parts of the area, they aren’t nimble and do not fight back normally. I don’t know, but if it is becuase we have become nice and tasty over the years, I think I have a decent suggestion. If Some tigers are captured, but never touched by human hands or harmed, you could then move these to a reserve with high walls and metal walls underneth the ground, becuase of digging. It would have to have a similar enviroment. You could fill it with fresh water pools, to stop the salt water. No humans can be in this area, only natural tiger game. Then about 2-3 generations later of breeding, the human flesh should be taken out. They could make falsh human bodies, but fill it with meat not appeasing to the tiger, and spinkle it with lots of bitter herbs. Then tigers would have no want to eat humans. It would be a slow, slow process, but could reduce the killings. Then Tigers and Humans could live in peace in the Sunderbans.
I really enjoyed your web page and i am doing a project on tigers and it is really interesting. Your page told me some new info about tigers thanx