Picture Credit: Randy Davison
Inner Self
Poaching is ugly
Tigers being the largest cat species walking on earth today, reaching up to 3.3 meters in length and weighing over 630 pounds(300kg), tigers are apex predators with no predators of their own. A full-grown tiger is taught to be more powerful and aggressive than their big cat cousin counterparts, the lion and jaguar. Adult tigers generally live alone and are vert solitary however after mating, male tigers tend to leave a female to care the cubs herself but will provide protection for them while they remain inside his territory. Sometimes male tigers have been seen to hunt and kill prey to fed his family. Unlike most other cats on earth, tigers are great at swimming and actually like the water. Tiger cubs are born blind and only open their eyes 1 to 2 weeks after birth. These adorable tiger cubs only start learning to hunt at six months of age but stay with their mother until they are around about 10 months of age.
The sad case for tiger cubs is that juvenile mortality is high, about 50% of all tiger cubs do not survive more than two years in the wild. This is because cubs are small and they can easily get badly injured while hunting prey their size or bigger, they also die in conflict with other tigers or with humans from poaching at the edge of forest reserves. Poaching is the biggest threat facing tigers, followed by habitat destruction from massive deforestation projects. It is a sad but very real reality that tigers are hunted for their skin and bones.
In relentless never-ending demand, their parts are used for traditional medicine as well as folk remedies and increasingly as a status symbol among a number of Asian countries. Tigers are illegally hunted and killed for their pelts(skin) because their pelts are highly valuable on the black market. Tiger poaching is directed by well-armed, dangerous and highly sophisticated criminal black-market gangs and their estimated money pull from illegal tiger poaching annually is 11 billion dollars. The reward money is what keeps black market operators as well as hunters coming back for more and more. The demand for tiger skin as well as tiger bone wine is booming as wealthy businessman buy these goods to prove their wealth. These products are also used as bribes for promotions within various corporations.
The way poachers hunt and kill these beautiful tigers aren’t humane in any sense. Shooting a tiger with high power guns or any type of guns for that matter would ruin a tiger’s majestic and prestigious skin. So, in order to hunt a tiger, steel traps that clamped on a tiger’s paws are laid in known tiger trails. Once trapped the poor tiger is left to struggle all night long in excruciating pain and helplessness. When the tiger is exhausted from it’s attempts to escape, poachers will strike a simple but deadly blow to the poor tiger’s head with a steal or heavy stick which is sufficient to kill off the already struggling tiger. Poachers also poisoned carcasses of a tiger’s prey to lure the tiger into eating it. The tiger would eventually die a painful suffering death after consuming the poisoned carcases bate. During the hot seasons, when tigers are most thirsty, poachers would dig shallow pools and fill them with poisoned water at locations where tigers wondered.
By some estimates, around a century ago 50,000 to 80,000 tigers roamed in India alone. Today tigers are classified as, “Endangered in the Red List of Threatened Species” as published by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), it is estimated that only around about 3,500 tigers are still alive out there in the wild, worldwide. Many charities as well as organisations have been set up to go against illegal tiger poaching activities, to try and preserve what little is left of these beautiful tigers in the wild.
Tigers aren’t just charismatic species or just another unique wild animal living in some far away forest or habitat. This is always overlooked but tigers are animals which plays a pivotal role in the diversity and health of an ecosystem. Tigers, as mentioned earlier, are a top predator which is at the apex of their food chain and keeps the population of wild ungulates in check, thereby maintaining the balance between prey herbivores and the vegetation upon which they feed. The presence of tigers in a forest is an indicator of the well-being of the ecosystem. The extinction of this top predator (Tigers) is an indication that its ecosystem is not sufficiently protected and would not exist healthily for too long thereafter.
If tigers go extinct, there is a huge possibility that the entire eco-system would collapse. Hard to imagine right? well, here is an example, when the Dodos went extinct on the island of Mauritius (Near India), one species of the Acacia tree stopped regenerating completely. So, when a species goes extinct, it leaves behind a permanent scar to the forest in inhibits which effects the entire ecosystem. It is not just about saving a beautiful animal like the tiger from extinction but it is also about making sure that we live a little longer as the forests are known to provide ecological services like clean air, water, pollination as well as temperature regulation.
Tigers are a precious and unique spices of the big cat family and if it weren’t for various Wildlife Associations and Charities, the tigers won’t be around any longer. Even now with only about 3,500 tigers in the wild, worldwide, we need to create awareness so that people know how close we are from losing one of the most iconic and majestic creatures this world has ever skin. Also, we have to stepped up and give the poor tigers a voice, to voice out against illegal black-market poachers who are making millions upon billions at the cost of so many tigers precious lives. Poaching these majestic wild cats are an act of animal cruelty and animal cruelty has no place in humanity!
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#AnimalCruelty #CageTheCruelty #AnimalSaviourJC
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Written by: Joshua. C 28 of June 2020
References:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_hunting
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https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2014/02/12/illegal-tiger-trade-why-tigers-are-walking-gold/
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