Saturday, August 17, 2019


Bengal Tiger

 Image result for images 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.

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