Tiger Subspecies Essay, Research Paper

Tiger Subspecies

I am here writing a report on the sub species of tigers. Many of these tigers will not survive in the next forty years due to the killing that us humans have caused. Tiger sub species have not been as important to us humans as whether or not the species Tiger Panthera tigris can survive either in the wild or in captivity for the next forty years. Nevertheless a great deal of information on the future of the tiger can be learned from a study of subspecies. Which is what my report will be based on.

It is amazing to me that people want numbers of tigers. Process is the important aspect. If I say that the number of Sumatra tigers today is between 300 and 400, it doesn’t tell one that the 1975 census was 1500. Therefore saying that the Bali tiger, theCaspian tiger, the Javan tiger, the Manchurian tiger, and the Southwest Chinese tiger are now extinct doesn’t give you aportrait of the process of extinction. The Javan tiger became extinct in the 1970’s in a set aside special national park under full protection.

Politicans and bureaucrats seem to be obsessed with numbers and not trends. Let me illustrate this with tigers.

There are frequently requests as to the exact number of tigers, or a tiger subspecies left in the world. That tells you that there are people that care. But there are so little tigers left that we can not even keep track of them.

We should look at the trend that the population is taking, rather than the number as a slice in time. Just as you might say of a young member of the Hunt family, that they were very wealthy. A hypothetical individual was 24 years old and had $1,000,000. What isn’tavailable in this one time analysis was that this Hunt inherited $24,000,000 at age 21, has no education nor ever worked. At age 22 Hunt had $9,000,000 and at 23 had $4,000,000. Now instead of saying Hunt was rich, we would say Hunt is in

trouble. Tigers are a great deal like Hunt.

The estimates of tigers are from the Carnivore Preservation Trust has arrived at their own estimates; they are highly educated guesses:

Bengal tigers probably number fewer than 1000 in India. In majority of that country it is hopelessly fragmented. It is, overall, actively poached. Fewer than 200 exist in Nepal and under 1000 exist in Myammar (Burma). Indochinese tigers are among 500 and 2000. CPT’s guess is about 700 amidst heavy poaching. In the early sixties when the South China tiger had a

population of about 4,000, Mao instituted a tiger eradication program. After Mao’s death in 1976, the South China tiger

population was reduced to 400. The Chinese government then instituted a “Save the Tiger Program!” South Chinese tiger is

about 25, but the wild number is so inbred that the effective population number is more like four! The Siberian tiger number

is between 125 and 175. (Closer to 125 according to the Russian scientist whowas recruiting for the genetic

management of the free ranging Siberian tiger program in October 1995.)

We must do something to stop the extincian of one of our must beautiful animals. We have lost to many species of animals and we can not afford to lose any more. As we can see, at the rate that we are losing animals in the world, pretty soon there are not going to be any left for us to enjoy.