WORLD TIGER DAYYY

Well everyone, it’s WORLD TIGER DAY!

Originally started by The Phoenix Fund, a Russian NGO sponsored by Save the Tiger in 2003, and celebrated every last Sunday of September, World Tiger Day has slowly grown in popularity. It has been used as a worldwide way to spread tiger awareness. (Yeah, really not much of a history there)

Celebrate today by spreading awareness of the plight of the tiger, whether it’s by posting something online or wearing your striped t-shirt. Anything goes!

            Get your World Tiger Day avatar, done by the Bush Warriors, here: http://bushwarriors.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/celebrate-world-tiger-day-with-us-this-sunday-september-26th/ 

            Happy world tiger day everybody; remember to do your bit! :)

Good Stuff!

In other news: The BBC crew has rediscovered a population of tigers in Bhutan, at an elevation of over 4000 meters (13,000 feet)! http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8998000/8998042.stm  This is good news, even if no exact numbers are known; there is evidence that these tigers are breeding. Also good news for tigers– the finding of these tigers is helping with Panthera’s ‘The Tiger Corridor Initiative’.

            And: THE KINGPIN HAS BEEN CAUGHT AGAIN!! He was caught coming from Thailand, through Penang and KL and onto Jakarta, with 95 boa constrictors in his luggage. Who keeps almost a hundred snakes in their bags and think that airport security won’t notice? Kingpin has been arrested – and has done jail time -  in the US before under animal trafficking charges, among other things.

            The Kingpin is the world’s most notorious wildlife dealer. More on this bumface here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/asian-wildlife/christy-text

…This is revealing yet another problem within the fight to stop the illegal wildlife trade – corruption! But who’s surprised, really?

But yes, a good day for wildlife overall! J

The Idea is Born

I’m not sure where this idea came from, but it’s stuck. I’ve known that tigers have been in a critical condition for a long time now, but I didn’t realize just how bad it was. There are a total of around 3200 tigers left in the wild, worldwide. That’s approximately one tiger to every 1,875,000 people. Half of this population is in India, and only one third are breeding females. We could be losing tigers, one of the most well known animals worldwide, completely within my lifetime. They have been mercilessly attacked by people, facing habitat encroachment, limited prey and poaching for their skin, meat and bones. It’s not their time yet, that I’m sure of. That’s why I’m doing this. Together we can make a difference – this doesn’t have to be the last year of the tiger.