The tiger – that majestic beast with which has painted stripes of terror over the denizens of the jungle, the beast of which many tales are told, and some untold. The tiger – the lord of all it surveys, has turned from the mighty hunter to the hunted.
Ever since the British thought it sport to hunt this beast in his own territory, the tiger has been hunted down by British royalty, Indian royalty, and post independence by poachers. Indian maharajahs and princes are also guilty of this act. Some of the biggest names in conservation today, Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson also began their careers as hunters and as likely as not killed as many innocent tigers as they did man-eaters.
The rule of tooth and claw has been rapidly replaced by the rule of finger and trigger, with an unsporting adversary in man, taking his place at the top of the chain and assuming the role of chief destructor.
If you look at the distinct sub-species of tigers, you’d find that only a handful have a real chance of survival. Earlier they roamed lands far and wide from Siberia, Bangladesh, Iran, Afghanistan, India, China, South East Asia and Caspian regions.
In order of their wild population, the currently surviving sub-species are:
1. The Bengal Tiger (Panthera Tigris tigris) is native to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma. The current strength of this population is put at 1,411 wild tigers (NTCA). Probably the biggest news in recent times was the complete depletion of the tiger population to poaching in the Indian wildlife reserve of Sariska, incidentally a Project Tiger reserve! Conservation status: endangered.
2. The Indo-Chinese Tiger (Panthera Tigris corbetti) (named after Jim Corbett) roams Cambodia, China, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. The population is rapidly diminishing due to habitat fragmentation and inbreeding. These tigers are widely slaughtered outside China to provide medicines to the Chinese! Conservation status: endangered.
3. Malayan Tiger (Panthera Tigris malayensis) is the world’s most recently named sub-species, as recently as 2004. Only about 600 tigers remain in the wild today. Conservation status: endangered.
4. Sumatran Tiger (Panthera Tigris sumatrae) is native to Sumatra. Numbers in the wild are estimated at 400 and about 20% of the population was poached before the turn of the millennium and the current chief threat is habitat destruction. Conservation status: critically endangered.
5. Siberian Tiger (Panthera Tigris altaica) is native to eastern and parts of northern Siberia. This tiger is one of the direct descendants from the saber-toothed tiger of eons past. Just about 500 of these magnificent animals remain in the wild. Conservation status: critically endangered.
6. South China Tiger (Panther Tigris amoyensis) is found in South China and it comes as no surprise that this species is almost extinct given the Chinese preference toward tiger parts for uses ranging from medicines to aphrodisiacs. When they’ve been prevented from having more than two kids, wonder what the use of an aphrodisiac could be! Interestingly, only about 50 of these animals remain in the wild, thereby dissolving the genetic diversity required to sustain a subspecies. Conservation status: critically endangered.
7. Balinese Tiger (Panthera Tigris balica) was native to Bali. It is now extinct as a sub-species, the last known specimen found in 1937. Conservation status: extinct.
8. Javan Tiger (Panthera Tigris sondaica) was native to Java. Continous hunting and habitat destruction brought about its extinction in the 1950’s itself, when the required numbers to sustain a sub-species were wiped out and fewer than 20 tigers remained in the wild. Conservation status: extinct.
9. Caspian Tiger (Panthera Tigris virgata) once roamed Persia, Iran, Iraq, the former Soviet Union and Turkey. The last known tiger of this sub-species was shot dead in 1970 in Turkey. Conservation status: extinct.
Basically, of the 9 sub-species of tiger, 3 are extinct, 1 is almost extinct given that it doesn’t have the genetic numbers to sustain a future bloodline, 2 are critically endangered and living in regions where other sub-species have turned extinct and 3 are endangered and at the risk of extermination by poachers, habitat destruction and the dangers of inbreeding.
Usually, nature equips her animals in such a way, that they are able to evolve and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. But given the rapid destruction of the tiger species as a whole, the very ingredient required to sustain tigers, life, itself has ebbed away. With not enough genetic diversity across its sub-species, the tiger did not evolve to face its enemy – man and is on the verge of extinction.
It’s almost too late to save this majestic marauder, but there is still hope…(keep China away!) Here’s why:
Most Chinese have a long standing belief that various tiger parts have medicinal properties from painkillers to aphrodisiacs. Strangely, there is no scientific evidence to support this even in the age of rapid technological development in the medical world. Though the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has banned tiger poaching, widely documented cases of tiger poaching and subsequent sale of parts and skins are reported regularly in China.
Start fighting for this animal’s right now, it deserves to live inside every one of us if we are to survive the world and it’s degradation.
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