bengal tigers...

bengal tigers...
09-08-2007

well they have always been considered the "safest" of the tiger subspecies, but there has been speculation in recent years that indian tigers are not faring as well as once thought....

now this...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ers-india.html

ouch! now how much to you wish those americans never cross-bred their tigers.

10-08-2007

Its almost an exact rerun of the news about Indian tigers in the early 1970's.

Then 'Project Tiger' was supposed to have been a major force in turning the population aroun, with healthy increases in many reserve.

So what went wrong? The estimated numbers now are far lower than they ever were before 'Project Tiger' How come it succeeded and then failed?

There are still plenty of Indian tigers in Indian Zoos. I'm surprised zoos elsewhere have not been able to obtain some of these to start up a fresh purebred zoo population. Maybe there is a total export ban from India nowadays?

10-08-2007

yes i read something that suggested indian legislation made it quite hard to export animals from the country, but i'm not sure. india has a very well established conservation movement, but no doubt its under resourced. probably no sooner does teh focus shift from one animal or place to another the "safe" places are pillaged within an instant. i've visted the country a couple of times and virtually every day there are articles about wildlife being decimated in one way or another. a lot of elephants are still being hit by trains in assam...

10-08-2007

Yes, I've been there twice too. .. And I fear that poaching is just so rife everywhere, inside parks too they can't keep on top of it, at least not longterm, whether its the tigers, rhinos or whatever.. The financial gains to the poachers from killing these animals are just too high.

11-08-2007

absolutely. i remeber visiting jaldhapara (sp?) a rhino sanctuary near sandwitched between the bhutanese and bangladeshi borders. the crap you have to go through to get into the park is rediculous with so much indian red tape (for those you who haven't been to india "indian red tape" is bureaucratic nonsense that has no function whatsoever other than to keep people employed - which may not be a bad thing in a land of one billion).

however once in the park i discovered it was home to several villages and was reguarly "raided" for firewood by those even outside its boundries. a busy public road passes along its boundaries and i often saw sneaky villages scampering around collecting things from the sanctuary they were not supposed to be. good luck stopping poachers when you have legal settlements within it boundaries and people all over the place!!!

nonetheless some 30 rhino lived on there. and elephants, leopards and lots of deer etc...

11-08-2007

Yes, Visiting Indian National Parks is an experience in itself- especially getting the all important 'Permissions' for entry.....

Your desciption of Jaldhapara could just as equally describe its more famous cousin Kaziranga. All the time there is human pressure 'nibbling away' at the boundaries, wildlife etc.