Bengal Tiger
I have read many articles
that scared me regarding the future of the Bengal Tiger.
I can’t believe it took
until 1969 for people to start working to help save the tigers. I still find many things frightening and I
hope whoever reads this will feel the urgency to do something to help
them. It is just tragic for people to
have thought the tiger and so many other animals around them an enemy or something
to sell. All animals, great and small,
are special. I am grateful that we can
enjoy seeing them in zoos that do their best to put them in native-like
environments.
At one time the tiger was
considered to be a “man-eater” and so was considered an enemy that should be
killed. Others believed tigers had
medical benefits and were killed for that purpose as well. The Bengal tiger population has been reduced in
large part due to their natural environment being taken over with agriculture
and road construction which in turn reduced its availability to find prey. At the beginning of the 20th
century there was thought to be around 100,000 tigers. Between 1900 and 1972 the Bengal tiger
population dropped from 40-50,000 to under 2,000. Three of the tiger subspecies has vanished---the
Bali, Caspian and Javan. In 1969
authorities began to realize the scope of this decline and measures were put in
place to prevent the tiger from completely dying out. The death decline has slowed thanks to a
conservation program that created protected habitats. The Bengal tiger is the most numerous of the
tiger species and now around 4,000 can be found. However, they are certain to be extinct in 10
years if the conservation practices are not successful.
Some interesting facts:
The Bengal Tiger is found
in parts of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma.
The Bengal Tiger is the
second largest of all living tiger subspecies.
Male tigers can weigh from
450-550 pounds and females can weigh as much as 310 pounds.
They have orange coats and
stripes that can vary in color from brown to black. Most tigers have over 100 stripes. Each striping pattern is unique to each
tiger, similar to the uniqueness of human fingerprints.
Tigers are excellent swimmers.
