Are tigers set to be the new dinosaur?

Take a look through the pages of the recent issues of More, Cosmopolitan or Vogue. What’s in fashion this summer? Micro minis and combats? Yep, both there. Tiger coats? Well, maybe you won’t see Liz Hurley parading it at the next major celeb bash but it really isn’t that unusual in some parts of the world.

Now this isn’t Mr Jones’ class at school anymore telling us all to look after the animals and the environment, ‘cause destroying such things is wrong. The sad fact is though, little of us know the real facts behind these issues.

There were once 100,000 tigers living wild. This number has now fallen to around 5,000 and is still steadily decreasing. But why is this so? Simply because of humans taking them away from their homes to make any money
they can from their fur or body parts. (And we thought us students would stoop pretty low for a bit of cash!)

Think of Fluffy the cat sitting at home, all cosy and happy in on his rug, rather similar to a picture-post-card loveable tiger cub in its jungle home in, say, Thailand.

Imagine this adorable cub being taken away from its home and family, confined in a cage barely bigger than itself. Imagine how happy it feels when the door to the cage is opened and thinks it’s going to be set free so it can frolic, when in reality its time for the innocent little creature to be brutally killed and skinned. Yuck.

In some cases all this would happen simply to take a few whiskers from the face of a tiger to treat (note – not cure) your toothache. Or perhaps keep a few centipedes away by burning a tiny proportion of its fur.

Not a nice thing to happen to a creature not so different from little old Fluffy is it? Therefore, why should it be okay to happen to a tiger? After all, if Fluffy or ourselves were taken into an environment slightly similar
to that, there would be swarms of people trying to prevent it. This is what we should be doing. The tigers can’t help themselves but we can.

By educating ourselves and others, by doing our part to help the animals, by demanding a change and becoming more active politically (see, it doesn’t have to cost
you!) active, each one of us can make a difference.

Tigers are not dinosaurs; they are still alive and can still be saved.

After all, would you really like to see your kids/grandkids seeing tigers as just another animal from ages ago in their textbook at school?

Care For The Wild International can help provide
information on how to help. Click here for more info.