Loving Animals Part Deux - Saving Tigers

(World Wildlife Library, 2011)

Discovering the tiger's eye stone and its properties has led us on a quite a journey.  We didn't know that tigers were disappearing from the earth rapidly. According to Huffington Post:  "Their numbers have dwindled to about 400 from 1,000 in the 1970s, and that according to the World Wildlife Fund, which set up cameras in Riau and Jambi provinces just three months ago to keep track of these treasured cats."

In support of the work being done by WWF, we began to create our new "Eye Of The Tiger" Series for the World Wildlife Fund's Save Tigers Now global campaign sponsored by Leonardo DiCaprio. Working together with the Smithsonian, their goal is to build political, financial and public support to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger.

Tigers are at a tipping point -- the point at which they can go either way in the wild: survival or extinction. Sumatran tigers are on the brink of extinction because of the destruction of forests, poaching and clashes with humans. This, the most iconic species on our planet, the one ingrained in our religions and in our cultures, could be gone forever.

So in 2010, the last Year of the Tiger, Leonardo DiCaprio teamed up with WWF, and the Smithsonian, to create the Save Tigers Now campaign. 

What has STN done lately?  Well...

(World Wildlife Fund, 2011)

• New Tiger Cub Stamp Will Generate Funds for Wildlife Conservation May 12
  The Save Vanishing Species stamp is a new semi-postal stamp designed to raise money to help protect endangered wildlife, including tigers, rhinos and marine turtles. The stamp features an Amur tiger cub and is the result of a 10-year effort begun and led by WWF, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Postal Service and other international conservation organizations.  So please go buy these stamps and save a species and a habitat.  For the latest PSA from WWF:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnZcAJEiXmA&feature=player_embedded

Solutions are being worked on now:  

Highlights from 'Setting Priorities for the Conservation and Recovery of the World's Tigers: 2005-2015'

WWF, Save the Tiger Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society and the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park collaborated on the most comprehensive scientific study of tiger habitats to date. We found that tigers reside in 40 percent less habitat than they were thought to a decade ago and now occupy only seven percent of their historic range.

About the study

• This is the most comprehensive report on the state of wild tigers ever produced and serves as a roadmap to guide conservation investors, practitioners, development agencies and governments as to actions needed to save wild tigers.
• Tiger conservation landscapes (TCLs) - an area with sufficient habitat for at least five tigers and where tigers have been confirmed to occur in the last 10 years - were assessed and 76 identified across Asia.
• TCL's were then prioritized by analyzing three data sets:
  • land cover derived from satellite images;
  • human interference data based on a previous global human footprint analysis; and
  • tiger distribution records from on-the-ground tiger sightings and signs, gathered from more than 3,000 tiger location points and input from 160 of the world's leading tiger conservation experts.

Important findings

• Tigers occupy just seven percent of their historic range.
• Tigers use 40 percent less area than was estimated in the first habitat assessment, completed in 1995 and published in 1997.
• A large area of habitat remains (>1.1 million km²).
• Four strongholds were found that can support more than 500 tigers:
  • Russian Far East-Northeast China,
  • Terai Arc Landscape of India and Nepal,
  • Northern Forest Complex-Namdapha-Royal Manas (Bhutan/Myanmar/India) and
  • Tenasserims of Thailand and Myanmar.
• Just 23 percent of tiger conservation landscapes are protected.

(World Wildlife Fund, 2011)

Recommendations to ensure a future for tigers

• Create human-tiger friendly landscapes that offer both core protected areas, surrounded by buffer zones where tigers can raise their young and allow humans and tigers to co-exist, and provide corridors that will connect tigers to other core protected areas.
• Increase conservation investment. Between 1998 and 2003, US$23.3 million was invested in all tiger conservation landscapes, with the two most significant donors being WWF and Save the Tiger Fund.
• Improve conservation across international borders - 18 of the tiger conservation landscapes are transboundary.
• Essential goals for the next 10 years:
  • Secure tiger populations in all global-priority tiger landscapes;
  • Obtain reserve status for 10 places with unprotected breeding tiger populations;
  • Establish at least five tiger habitat "corridors" between fragmented tiger conservation landscapes.
  • Expand the range of breeding tigers in at least five priority tiger conservation landscapes.
• Implement a holistic conservation strategy. This should engage regional development organizations, government officials, NGO's and businesses to consider tiger conservation needs in national and regional development plans.

Learn more at tigermaps.org Visit www.SaveTigersNow.org to learn about the threats facing tigers and how you can help, or maybe even symbolically adopt a tiger.

We at Missing Links are proud to donate 20% of our proceeds to WWF during the month of May on all items purchased from our "Eye of the Tiger" series.

You can check 'em out at these links...
Inner Circles #802:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270749988662&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Tiger's Eye Beholder #803
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270749993195&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

All Eyes #804
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270749999343&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Princess of the Forest #805
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270750019288

Eyes of Tigers #806
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270750022515

Trees For Tigers #807
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270750025502

Purchase an heirloom, save a tiger.  ;-)

(World Wildlife Fund, 2011)