The Rawr Facts: Tigers

RAWR!






















Okay, so, that was impressive, eh?  Now, let's get down to the tiger facts.

First, the basics.  What's a tiger?

FACT R:  Well, a tiger is a big cat.  In fact, the Siberian tiger is the biggest cat on the face of this earth!  It can weight from 181-306 kilograms!  That's 400-675 in pounds.  My goodness, Siberian tigers!

FACT A: Tigers are carnivores, which means they eat meat.  They love a nice juicy deer brushed with some field grass, a nice wild pig with a tint of mud flavor, and water buffalo with a side order of antelope.  It is only when us stupid humans take away their forest that tigers would come and steal our cattle or even turn to man-eaters.  If we were desperate, we'd eat things we won't normally eat too, right?

FACT W: Tigers like to be alone.  Of course, except for mating season, that is.  Territory is basically everything to them until the season of love comes around.  Tigers can fight for territory even to the death.  They're kind of like great warriors but all year round.

FACT R: Tigers have cubs.  And they're cute.  They have 3-4 at a time.  The little wabbly-legged cubs will follow they're mother around until they're 18 months old.  Then, at 2 1/2 years, they leave home.  Here's a scary thing the males might do that I'm glad humans don't: The male might kill the little babies to make the female able to mate again.  Not the same male but some other male.  It's all about passing down the genes.



So, those are the RAWR facts of the tiger.  Oh, wait, I forgot the exclamation point.

FACT !: Our old tiger friends live in all kinds of places.  Tropical forests where greenery is dense and lush, evergreen forests where winter leaves a beautiful contrast of the orange tiger in the white snow, woodlands, mangrove swamps, grasslands, the stretching Savannah, and even the hardcore rocky countries.  You might be wondering, "What?  Swamps?  Don't cats hate water?"  Well, remember, this is a wild cat.  And well, actually, tigers are pro swimmers and can even slay some dinner while they swim.  Talk about taking dinner to go.

Extra FACT: Did you know that tigers' stripes weren't all black?  They can be brown or even gray.  He he, you probably didn't know that, did you?  Well, you're not alone!  Neither did I until a few minutes ago.

Stay tooned for facts on Amur leopards!  And of course, even more for tigers!

References
Defenders of Wildlife: Fact Sheet Tiger

Critically Endangered: Amur Leopards

So we come to my next favorite animal; the Amur leopards.

Most of you probably have never heard of the beautiful creatures.  I'll tell you why.

Because there are only 30 left in this entire world.

Think about it.  This world is sooooooooooooo huge!!  So vast and wide and there are so many countries and so many undiscovered places.  And there are only 30, ONLY 30 Amur leopards left.  Some of you may have been in a classroom with 30 students.  Imagine each of those students as one Amur leopard.  It might seem like a lot but compared to the rest of the endangered animals on the menu, Amur leopards are so few.  That's why they're in the "Critically Endangered" category.

Let's take a look at the beautiful Amur leopards in a moment.  So little is known about them to the public.  I didn't know about them for a long time until something sparked in me to look up the endangered species on Wikipedia.  There, I noticed for the first time that inside "Endangered Species" there were different categories.

All together there are seven categories.  We have, in order, "Least Concern (LC)", "Near Threatened (NT)", "Vulnerable Species (VU)", "Endangered Species (EN)", "Critically Endangered (CR)", "Extinct in the Wild (EW)", and finally "Extinct (EX)".

"So what is the difference between the last two?" you might ask.  Well, "Extinct in the Wild" and "Extinct" seem somewhat similar to each other but, "Extinct" means that you won't even find those species in the zoo or conservation parks.  "Extinct in the Wild" means just that; they are extinct only in the wild but you can find them in zoos and/or conservation parks.

Then, we have the Red List, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List.  All species are measured on population by experts like conservation biologists and people of specialty in those sort of fields.  The Red List covers three of the threatened categories; EN, CR, and EW.  Once the species passes EW, there is no going back.  Unless maybe if clone technology is improved... but that's just a random thought.

So, let's get back on topic.  Amur leopards are in the CR category.  Can you see how close they are to extinction?  CR is only one category away from complete extinction!

Now, to get a sense of what these creatures look like, here are some pictures.





A picture of an Amur leopard from the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
 

An Amur leopard in the snow.

Amur leopard cub.

I'll go into more detail later on.  If you don't feel compassionate about conserving the Amur leopard, think about your favorite animal.  Maybe a dog?  Maybe a cat?  Maybe a frog or a pelican or something?  Now, think about the what-if.  What if there were only 30 of your favorite animals left in the whole entire world?  What if your favorite animal was doomed to become extinct unless we did something about it?

Here's something you can do to help; adopt an Amur leopard.  You can send an invitation to your friends, or you can get one as a gift for them or a family member.  The more people help out, the better chance we have in saving these beautiful creatures.  If you're too young to adopt anything, talk to the parents about your passion for helping to keep the Amur leopards in this world.  If they say "no", like my mother did for some weird money reason, act.  Take action.  Help me promote this to the world.  Your help will be greatly appreciated.





References
Endangered Species Wikipedia
IUCN Red List Wikipedia
Central Florida Zoo: Amur leopards
Marwell Wildlife
ALTA: Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance  (check out this site!)

The Common Creature On The Menu

Tigers.  We have known them for decades.  On Sundays parents may take their children to zoos to see the beautiful creature, to see their power and their ancientness.

In Asian culture tigers are depicted as being king of all beasts, fearless and royal. 

Painting by Zhang Shanzi (1882-1940)

In Bangladesh, Malaysia, and in South Korea, the tiger is the national animal.  In China, the tiger is a member in the zodiac and seen in Buddhism as symbolizing anger.  Many other cultures also use tigers in their religion and in their folklore.

We all know (hopefully), Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book".  Shere Khan the tiger is the enemy of the man-cub, Mowgli. 

And we also all know (hopefully), of the bouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun Tigger in Winne-the-Pooh.

 

 



And we even went to great lengths to create plush out of our favorite animals.  Like the Beanie Baby, India, for example.

So, there you go.  Tigers are quite loved and quite common and one might think they'll always exist and we'll always see them around in zoos and on Animal Planet and the National Geographic show and BBC.

But now here they are, feared to become extinct, reduced to less than 4000 in the world.  According to the World Wildlife Fund's website called WWF Global, since the 20th century, the numbers of these beautiful creatures met with a drastic reduction.  From an approximate 100,000 to about 3,200.

Wow...  Wonder what did that, eh?

There are actually three types of tigers already extinct; the Bali tiger, the Caspian tiger, and the Javan tiger.  The Bali tiger lost its last in the late 1930s in the island of Bali in Indonesia.  The Caspian tiger (reminds me of Prince Caspian in the Chronicles of Narnia), was never seen again by the mid-1970s.  And last, the Javan tiger was never spotted again after the 1990s.

Now, they are on the menu of the Endangered Species list.  But the WWF is putting effort in saving these beautiful creatures.

If you're interested in saving the tigers, check out

WWF Tiger Adoptions and ways you can help

Also, please tell your friends about the situation with tigers.  Things need to be done and creatures need to be saved!

Later on I'll post more reasons on why we should save the tigers and what is making them reduce so dramatically.



References
Tiger Wiki
WWF Global Tiger Populations
Tiger Painting

Why this blog?

There are a few reasons why I started this blog.

1. My love of animals.

2. I'm not a leader.  I'm not a politician or someone who can organize a protest or something.

3. I want to help animals that are becoming extinct or that are critically endangered.

My favorite animals are:

The Tiger
and
The Amur Leopard

Of course I support the conservation of many other animals.  But tigers... they're such common animals.  A child's favorite zoo animal, depicted in Winnie the Pooh as the mischievous Tigger and in the Jungle Book as the cunning Shere Khan... how can we let this go?

And, Amur Leopards, these are beautiful creatures that are critically endangered.

Guess what?  There are only 30 Amur leopards in the whole entire world according to the WWF site.  At the World Wildlife Fund website, did you know you could adopt an Amur leopard?  I might adopt a tiger but I have to consult the Parents first.  I'm not old enough to be deciding these things on my own yet :/  Too bad.

Click here to adopt an Amur Leopard!

This is the beautiful Amur Leopard hunted down for fur :(

 

 



The Amur Leopard cub!  So cute! :)