Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Tiger Looking Back at us
Even in the countryside there was the haze of pollution in the air, apart from the fields. In the
early 1990s there were 50 and each tiger was said to generate $10 million to the local
economy, which sounds very high. I was fortunate to photograph a young 4 year old male that
walked for about a mile in front of our small four wheel drive open “gypsy” truck as he forced
us to reverse backwards down a narrow winding track with cliffs on both sides. The
experience added further meaning to Blake's words:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
There are only about 1350 tigers left in India, out of a total wild population of some 3,200
wild tigers across 23 countries. The one population is going to get split by the building of the
Mekong Dam that will make interaction for genetic diversity nearly impossible and destabilize
the population according to WWF. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS),
although the Amur tigers increased from a population of about 30 in 1940 and peaked at 500 in
2005 spread over 9,000 square miles, the population as decreased by 40% over the last few
years because of poaching, less guards, and habitat loss. There are about 5000 tigers in
captivity in the USA and also in China, where in the case of the latter they are bred for
traditional medicine. The 30 square mile tiger reserves of India are relatively small parcels of
land in comparison to the Kruger Park's or Etosha's of 10,000 to 15,000 square miles.
Historically, there were two main reasons why the British did not establish larger parks in
India.
First, the British Colonials, and specifically the army officers, joined the Raj or Princes for
hunts on the Raj's land; they did not need “Game Reserves” for hunting. In China, their land
was very restricted in Hong Kong and so no major reservations were either established by the
British.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search