...TIGERS The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to 3.38 m (11.1 ft) over curves and weighing up to 388.7 kg (857 lb) in the wild. Its most recognisable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with a lighter underside. The species is classified in the genus Panthera with the lion, leopard, jaguar and snow leopard. Tigers are apex predators, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and bovids. They are territorial and generally solitary but social animals, often requiring large contiguous areas of habitat that support their prey requirements. This, coupled with the fact that they are indigenous to some of the more densely populated places on Earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans. Tigers once ranged widely across Asia, from Turkey in the west to the eastern coast of Russia. Over the past 100 years, they have lost 93% of their historic range, and have been extirpated from southwest and central Asia, from the islands of Java and Bali, and from large areas of Southeast and Eastern Asia. Today, they range from the Siberian taiga to open grasslands and tropical mangrove swamps. The remaining six tiger subspecies have been classified as endangered by IUCN. The global population in the wild is estimated to number between 3,062 and 3,948 individuals, down from around 100,000 at the start of the 20th century, with most remaining populations occurring in small pockets isolated from each...
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...The Bengal Tiger The Bengal tiger is a carnivorous, mammal primarily from India. It lives in habitats such as the coniferous Himalayan Forest, the mangroves of the Sunderbans, the hills of the Indian Peninsula, or the forests of Rajasthan and Northern India. At one time Bengal tigers were scattered throughout Asia. Now they are generally found in India and some regions of Bangledesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Myanmar. There is approximately 4,000 alive in the wild now, and about 300 are in captivity in zoos around the world. Bengal tiger's are one of the largest and most feared cats in the cat family. An adult tiger can weigh any where from 350 to 550 pounds. The adult males weigh an average of 480 pounds, while the females weigh about 300. Their body lengths are between 6 and 9 feet long! A Bengal tiger hunts primarily deer, wild pigs, water buffalo, birds and other small mammals. When driven from hunger a this tiger will eat almost anything. Crocodiles, lizards, fish, and even humans are eaten by a frustrated Bengal tiger. They eat meat and only meat. Their style of attack is differant from the cheetah's and the lion's; who hunt in open habitats. Although it is a heavier predator than that of the lion and cheetah, it averages about 50 deer a year. Bengal tigers need a wide forest-like areas to hunt their prey. They are known to hunt alone, but have been found to hunt in packs. These tigers are semi-nocturnal, because they sometimes hunt at night. They use flying tactics...
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...Royal Bengal Tiger The Royal Bengal Tiger, once known as the reigning feline of Asia, are now on the brink of extinction. This beautiful species is quickly disappearing due to human activity. Land development has pushed back forestry, which is making it almost impossible for tigers to survive in their range of natural habitat. Additionally, even though it’s illegal to own, hunt or trap tigers, poachers continue to trap and sell tiger parts on the black market. Furthermore, tigers are being separated by “population fragmentation” which prevents them from mating and producing healthy cubs. Although conservation centers are providing safe havens for tigers, they are not seeing the results they expected. Royal Bengal Tigers are a majestic and alluring animal that will no longer exist if humans continue to poach them and take away their natural habitat. Due to massive human population increase in India, tigers have lost most of their natural habitat in the rain forest. According to the World Wildlife Federation, “Royal Bengal Tigers have lost 93% of their range and habitat in the last forty years. At the expense of tigers, forestry and grass lands were destroyed to develop land for agricultural and housing use to accommodate the accelerated population of humans. Jonathan Wright, an expert on Royal Bengal Tigers, explains that male tigers are loners and do not share their hunting grounds, with other males’ only females; they need a large home range. Each male tiger requires 20-30...
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...100,000 tigers roaming the forests, swamps, and tundra of Asia. TODAY, there are as few as 3,200 left in the wild. Only 7% of historic tiger habitat still contains tigers. At this rate, wild tigers will be extinct in just a few decades. Illegal Trade Consumer demand for tiger parts poses the largest threat to tiger survival. Tigers are being hunted to extinction by poachers for their skins, bones, teeth and claws, which are highly valued for their use in traditional Asian medicine (TAM), various folk remedies and various products. The wildlife trade network, TRAFFIC, found that for the past two years, the smuggled parts from at least 200 tigers have been confiscated per year by law enforcement in Asia. In the past 10 years, over 1000 tigers have been killed to traffic their parts to meet consumer demand in Asia. Demand Tiger bones have been used in TAM for a wide variety of ailments for more than 1,000 years. In 1993 the Chinese government banned the trade and use of tiger parts, but cultural belief in the power of tiger parts remains. Parts from a single tiger can fetch as much as $50,000 on the black market, making the poaching of these magnificent creatures very alluring to criminal networks. Claws, teeth and whiskers are believed to provide good luck and protective powers. And tiger skins and tiger bone wine are valued as status symbols. Black Market Demand Uses of tiger body parts in various cultures that is driving the poaching of wild tigers. Tiger Farms ...
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...BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSYTEM LOSS An ecosystem is defined as ‘a biological community interacting organisms and their physical environment’ Source: Oxford dictionary – http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ecosystem While by definition, biodiversity includes all living organisms (wild or domesticated) and the habitats (natural or man-made) within which they occur. Furthermore, the components of biodiversity are not independent because the patterns in nature are a result of interactions between genetic diversity and the environment’. Source: WWF - http://www.worldwildlife.org/bsp/publications/africa/181/Chap_2.html I am reminded of the John Muir quote “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” To me that is how the world is, all interconnected by invisible threads- we never understand the depth of impact when one thread is broken until it is too late. Biodiversity and ecosystems around the world are being threatened at an alarming rate due to several environmental changes and by us humans. As well as the many moral and ethical reasons to preserve it for its own sake, biodiversity and ecosystems bring to us several services and resources such as food, water, pest control, medicines and moreover regulates the world’s climate. As a result of most of our food and necessities coming from these ecosystems, it is essential for the current and future generations that our biodiversity remains intact. Humans must ensure...
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...came up that the Indochinese tiger also called panther tigris corbetti population was at zero in China thanks to a poacher who is now in jail. The population of the Indochinese tigers became very low ever since then. According to the World wild life fund the current population of the Indochinese tiger is at 300 in the whole entire world. Though WWF are not the only ones that think the tigers should be saved, we also think it deserves to be saved. There are a lot of reasons why some animals are endangered and one of them is a scarce food source. Their origin of food is ungulates, deer, and wild pigs. Although in certain habitats they are forced to eat smaller prey like porcupines, badgers, smaller deer, and rabbits. In addition to that there are actual human beings poaching the poor tiger to use folk remedies, and wild meats. Furthermore, the tigers habitats are currently taken away, and being used by agricultural plantations, mining, concessions, and inundations. For that reason, the tigers are forced to move to an area that makes them more vulnerable to poachers. Moreover the babies are taken from their mothers and killed for their skin which makes the population of these tigers much less. Now imagine that your place the place you have lived your whole entire life in, and had millions of memories gone. Everyone close to you is gone, and you are all alone. This is exactly how a tiger would feel. The life span of the Indochinese tiger is 15-20 years. The current population...
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...“Tiger Mending” After I finished reading this short story, I was left feeling very unsettled. I think the most prominent reason being the numerous questions left in my head that were not answered in the story. The story starts off explaining two sisters. It appears to be that both of the sisters love each other very much and enjoy being around each other despite the fact that they have two very different personalities. They both have different strengths and different qualities but somehow seem to work well together. Towards the beginning of the story, the narrator tells the reader that the girl’s parents have died. Both parents passed away during surgery, nothing more is explained. That is one of the reasons why Sloane, one of the sisters, stops medical school because she doesn’t want to be a surgeon after what happened to her parents. One major question I had while reading this story was why does their work have to be so secretive? The girls are blind folded when they are transported to the location of the tigers and then told to be quite about their jobs. When the girls discover that they will be fixing tigers with ripped open skin, I felt disgusted. There is a lot of emphases on the tiger’s strips, which to me was very symbolic in this story. No two tigers have the exact same pattern of stripes. I could connect that realization with the idea that no two people are exactly the same as well. I also saw the parallel between life and society. For example, people can’t blame...
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...Endangered Tigers Today wild tigers exist in Eastern Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bhutan, India and Nepal. In order to live in the wild, tigers need water to drink, animals to hunt, and vegetation in which to hide. As the mountains, jungles, forests, and long grasses that have long been home to tigers disappear, so too, do tigers. Agricultural expansion, timber cutting, new roads, human settlement, industrial expansion and hydroelectric dams push tigers into smaller and smaller areas of land. These small areas of forests are surrounded by rapidly growing and relatively poor human populations, including increasing numbers of illegal hunters. Tigers compete with an expanding human population and industry for land and food, many tigers are killed by poachers who sell the tiger’s body parts as ingredients for traditional Chinese medicines. If these trends continue, the wild tiger may evolve from being an endangered species and off the endangered species list to become an extinct species. Without wilderness, the wild tiger will not survive. If the world is not careful, one of the beautiful creatures on the planet will become extinct. Everyday more and more tigers are being slaughtered for their skin, bones, meat, and other organs to produce clothes, home décor, medicine, food and even alcohol. For example bones are soaked in alcohol to make wine, and ground up bone mixed with herbs is believed to relieve pain such as arthritis...
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...The Bengal Tiger Introduction Perhaps there is no more famous of a Bengal tiger (Panthera Tigris Tigris) than Rudyard Kipling’s Shere Khan. Known as the dominant and feared antagonist in The Jungle Book that was to be not only feared, but respected throughout the entire jungle. Although it’s habitat is in India, the Bengal tiger has commanded so much respect that even an American professional football team’s logo uses the Bengal as their official mascot (Cincinnati Bengals). The problem is that perhaps that respect has dwindled since the time of The Jungle Book and the inception of the Cincinnati Bengals in 1966. While there are on-going efforts to save this incredible big cat, their status is still listed as Endangered. Habitat and Characteristics Bengal tigers (also known as Royal Bengal tiger or Indian tigers) are commonly found in the subcontinent of India and in dense forests, mangrove swamps, and jungles throughout the subcontinent and in some areas in China and Nepal. While most are orange, black, and white, there are some Bengal tigers that are reported to have an all white coloration (animalplanet.com) and they are only known species of tiger to be all white. Average length for these special tigers at around 10 feet. While it is considered to be the second largest tiger in the world (Siberian or Amur tiger is larger), it is sometimes claimed to be the largest tiger on average (a-z-animals.com). Although they weigh between 300-600 pounds and with an average weight...
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...Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is the smallest of the remaining five tiger subspecies. It has lived exclusively, for over a million years, in the once extensive moist tropical jungles of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. Their population in the wild is now heavily fragmented and is estimated to range between 400 and 500 individuals. Groups of between a few and several dozen tigers can be found principally in and around Sumatra's national parks. The Sumatran tiger represents a uniquely hopeful opportunity for the survival of an individual subspecies of tiger in the wild. Specifically, the animal is isolated geographically to the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. This is important for many reasons. First, the animal has been genetically isolated. This offers felid biologists the opportunity to study the effects of such genetic isolation on a particular subspecies, unlike other surviving subspecies, which until the beginning of the last century, could roam among and between the realms of neighboring subspecies. Wild Sumatran tigers have survived within the isolated and somewhat continuous political environment of the Island of Sumatra. This has afforded researchers, such as The Sumatran Tiger Project team, an opportunity to study these animals' genetic status in their natural habitat over an extended period of time. As a result, important first-hand field data has been generated which is relevant to all the surviving tiger subspecies. Sumatran tigers are especially...
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...Lion & Tigers The cat world has a wide variety of different breeds, two of which are considered the fiercest of the feline species. The names of these two felines are the Lion and the Tiger both belong to the scientific classification name of Panthera Leo. The Lion and the Tiger are the largest of the feline species though they appear to be different in many aspects, they also contain many similarities. Lions and Tigers are similar, as well as different, in the hunting habits they contain, their appearance, as well as their habitats. Most already know that the feline species are carnivorous, meaning they eat meat; this is of course, also a fact for that of the Lion and the Tiger. Both of these felines have very sharp claws and teeth in which they use for hunting and consuming their prey. While they both have long and sharp fangs they do not use their teeth for chewing, they instead are used for ripping off pieces of flesh and then proceed to swallow these pieces whole. Since the Lion and the Tiger live in different habitats which contain different species of prey, their options for food choices are different as well. The Lion has the preference of hunting and consuming hoofed animals such as; antelope, zebra, and wildebeest. The Tiger also prefers hoofed animals but has a different choice of selection including the deer and wild boar. The hunting habits of these large cats are different in many ways as well. Lions are known to stay in groups, which is referred to as...
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...The Sumatran Tiger the sumatran tiger is an extraordinary creature, but it is going extinct. in 2008 the estimated population was from 441 to 671 tigers left. This tiger has the thinnest strips of all the tigers.the sumatran tiger also has more hair on the face and around the neck area than other species. Indonesia in which these magnificent creatures live. The sumatran tiger are carnivores which means they eat meat. some meats that they eat are birds, monkeys, cattle, goats, wild boar and deer as well as smaller animals such as fish, crocodiles and fowl. the sumatran tiger is an excellent swimmer and can carry their prey though water. these tigers can swim for about four miles. Mating can occur at any time of the year for the Sumatran Tigers, but November to April seems to be the most common. The females give off strong odors while in estrus that will attract males. They may call to each other until the male finds the female and mates with her several times over a period of a few days. the male and the female will then create a den where they can keep the young cubs safe for 8 weeks. The cubs are very small and they are born blind. There can be up to 6 young born but there are often only two or three per litter. As in the introduction, sumatran tigers are going extinct which is a known fact. The reason why this is happening is because of us, humans. Although you are not supposed to hurt or kill sumatran tiger people still do it. Also the destruction...
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...The White Tiger 1) The rooster coop is cages in the Delhi markets, with hundreds of hens and roosters stuffed in them. They can barely breath, and they emit a smell of terrified flesh. On top of the cage sits a butcher, showing of the organs of there recently murdered brothers. They smell the blood, and they see the bodies. They know they're next, but yet they don't do anything about it. The narrator tells that the exact same thing is done with humans in india. He compares the chickens living in a miserable condition, with the poor class in India. Ther're masters and there're servants. 99,9 percent of the Indian population is a member of the rooster coop. They are oppressed by the masters. They often get the chance to steal a black suitcase full of money, or something else full of value, and then they could just disappear and have a good life while being wealthy, but nobody ever does it. 2) The narrator doesn't describe the indians as honest people, but they are trustworthy because most of them are caught in the rooster coop, and nobody dare to break out of it. 3) The narrator indirectly tells that the police isn't credible. It is certainly not sure that they would give back the suitcase with the money to the right owners if it were in their custody. 4) The narrator doesn't sound very fond of the Chinese system. He has a bad attitude towards dictatorship, and describes China as a unpleasant place to live by saying: “(if you had something like the rooster...
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...Siberian Tiger I. Introduction a. How I Became Interested b. Threats c. Groups Helping d. Chances of Survival II. History a. Name b. Habitat c. Stages of Life/Behavior III. Characteristics a. Physical Features b. Reproduction/Mating c. Population Trends IV. Challenges and Threats a. Poachers b. Natural Threats c. Human Activity V. Outlook a. Things Being Done To Conserve b. Groups Working On It and Challenges They Face c. What Can You Do To Help VI. Summary d. Is This Animal Expected To Survive e. What Are the Chances f. Remainder of remaining population On July 28, 2002, my family and I visited the Houston Zoo. As we walked looking at the different animals and exhibits, a group of Siberian tigers caught our attention. We were amazed at how large and beautiful they were. While admiring the tigers we were invited to attend an exhibit on the Siberian tiger. The exhibit was on the preservation of the Siberian tiger. During the exhibit there was a lecture given informing everyone on the life on the Siberian tiger. I learned that the Siberian tiger is considered critically endangered. There are many groups and organizations that are fighting for the preservation of the Siberian tiger. The Wildlife Conservation Society is one group fighting to save the Siberian tiger. Another group is the Siberian Tiger Conservation Association. I think that the Siberian tiger has no chance of its continued survival. Siberian tigers are also called...
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...that you can still hear the shouts of fear from a man. This man’s name was Taylor “Tiger” Alcon. Most people, however, only knew him as Tiger.His body was never found, nor was his car. Only pictures can show faint images of Tiger. They show his body mutilated and destroyed by many cuts. Today is one of those days, and I am here to tell you the story of how Tiger got his stripes. The day started as any other, except for the rain. The rain poured in an endless sheet, forcing the rivers around the town to rise and threaten to attack the houses that surrounded them. The bar where Tiger frequented was bustling with folk from around town. This place drew crowds you wouldn’t see anywhere else. Groups of people you would never see conversing sat together, chatting as if they were old friends. The place smelled of alcohol and lost dreams. A scent that Tiger was familiar with. When Tiger walked into the building he was greeted by the woman behind the counter. She had long blonde hair and her ear was pierced to infinity. The people called her Buffalo....
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