Year of the tiger
some good news for a majestic, endangered animal
Inspired by Lunar New Year and the year of the Water Tiger, we’ve been learning more about the world’s biggest cats, Panthera tigris.
Tigers are beautiful and powerful apex predators. That means they aren’t natural prey for any other animals, and their hunting behaviors help keep the populations of other animals in balance. Wild tigers eat sambar deer, wild pigs, water buffalo, antelope, and even elephants. They can eat eighty pounds of meat in a single meal, then fast for days. Tigers can weigh more than 600 pounds and can run 30-40 miles per hour.
A group of tigers is called a streak, but you won’t usually see them in a group—unless you’re counting a female tiger and her cubs. Tiger moms usually give birth to two to four cubs per litter, and care for them as a group for more than two years. Otherwise they’re mostly solitary animals and have very large ranges—male tigers (which have larger ranges than females) often have territories of sixty square miles! Siberian tigers range the farthest at more than two hundred square miles. In the wild, tigers live 10-15 years.
One of the most interesting things we’ve learned is that a hundred years ago, the world had more than 100,000 wild tigers, all across Asia. One hundred years is not actually that long ago. There are living turtles that are way, way older than 100, and that means that back when they hatched, there were 100,000 tigers! Or more!
Today there are thought to be fewer than 4,000 tigers in the wild, with the highest number (2,967) living in India.
They’re endangered for a few human-caused reasons:
-Habitat destruction because of farming and deforestation
-Illegal killing and poaching
-Not enough food (because of habitat destruction)
More than 95% of tigers’ original natural habitat has been destroyed.
But here’s the good news! Tigers are now actually increasing in number. Since the last year of the tiger (2010), tiger populations have increased by 63% in Nepal and 31% in India. This is because of the efforts of these countries (and other tiger-habitat countries) to stop poaching, protect tiger habitats, and set aside land for conservation. Watch this video from the World Wildlife Fund about this important work:
There are actually more tigers in captivity in the United States alone than in their native wild habitats across Asia. Most of these are in private homes, roadside attractions, and breeding facilities. Only six percent live in accredited zoos. Though some people think that keeping any wild animal captive is wrong, other people believe that zoos are important resources. They give scientists a chance to study endangered animals and to educate the public about why these animals are so special and worth saving.
Check out these videos about tigers named Spot and Stripe from Australia Zoo:
Why can’t you just release these captive tigers into the wild? There are many reasons! First, they have gotten so used to living in zoos that they wouldn’t know how to hunt or behave like a wild tiger. Second, tigers in unaccredited zoos are “hybrids”—they are a mix of different subspecies from very different climates, so they could do very poorly if introduced to the wild. As Tara Pirie explains in this Conversation article, many have also been inbred to make them more “valuable,” which has also hurt them:
Captive white tigers are a good example. Most are believed to be descended from a single male, Mohan, caught in 1951 by the Maharaja of Rewa in India. Mohan was then mated with his own offspring, resulting in white cubs. Due to their whiteness being a recessive genetic trait – and therefore less likely to be inherited by their children, much like red hair in humans – related tigers were bred together to increase the likelihood of white offspring. Nowadays they are highly inbred which is why they have so many medical problems such as kidney disease.
Finally, if the real problem is disappearing tiger habitat, then that is what we need to work on—protecting and reforesting their homes.
Bea would like to volunteer at Carolina Tiger Rescue when she’s old enough. They rescue and take care of (but do not breed) tigers that were once poorly cared for in people’s homes (because you cannot properly or safely care for a tiger at your house!), in small zoos, and in traveling circuses. Carolina Tiger Rescue has a kids’ website with games and information about tigers and other big cats, plus a great section with ideas for how to help tigers.
One of the best and easiest ways to help tigers is to reduce your consumption of disposable products, and switch to forest-friendly products with the FSC logo:
This logo can be found on all kinds of paper (including toilet paper), but only for brands that source their products from a “responsibly managed forest.” According to the World Wildlife Fund, this means “trees are harvested legally, highly hazardous pesticides are not used, the rights of indigenous people are protected, and more.” You can fill out this form to find out more from the WWF.
And helping tigers by preserving their habitats helps all of us! Most importantly, it saves forests, which reduces climate change, saves other wildlife, protects rivers, and improves water quality and quality of life for people living downstream.
Even though tigers are still critically endangered, we think it’s so exciting to see animals making a comeback. Here are a few more species that prove that protection can make a big difference (aside from the starfish—apparently they fixed the problem themselves).
Do you have a favorite animal comeback? Or an animal you are especially concerned about saving?