its just a sad day when such a magnificent animal becomes extinct in wild, but not to worry! you can see an unhappy, malnourished tiger in an inadequate enclosure at your local zoo!

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Is it a sad day when some ugly insect becomes extinct too?
Because I'm pretty sure that's already happened a couple times today alone.

And where, besides a zoo, is a north American supposed to see a tiger exactly?
Whatever zoos you go to sound like shit.
Maybe you should become a donating member to make the lives of the animals better like I do rather than bitch about it.
I also volunteer at the LA zoo and I know several people that work there and they would take high offense to your "malnourished" quip as well.

Maybe you're right though.
Catch the next plane to Laos, crawl through the jungle for a couple weeks and find one of those "magnificent animals" in the wild. It's the best way to enjoy them.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

i dont need to see them to enjoy them. i dont go to zoos, why not go to a prison and watch the inmates instead? i just dont see your angle here. let em go extinct in the wild?

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I take exception to that statement.
And since you just admitted you don't go to zoos you also admit you don't know what you're talking about.

Ever been to the San Diego wild animal park?
How about the Monteray Bay Aquarium?

Oooo those evil animal prisons...the horror.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

i havnt been to a zoo in probably a decade, no. but, like you, i also know people who volunteered at zoos and such. and they complained of the poor conditions of the animals. unless you are giving tigers a sprawling enclosure, its not going to work. and by sprawling, i mean acres and acres.

i dont like seeing animals in zoos, i dont like that they are going extinct and the thinking is "who cares? we have them at zoos."

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Isn't extinction part of nature's cycle. It's sad, but fuck it, honestly. We didn't do enough to save the woolly mammoth, either

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So my going "who cares, at all" is probably worse, huh...

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sure, but when extinction is accelerated because the human population growth is out of control, then i dont see it that way. of course people need to go on with their lives, but its always human first, and we will deplete an ecosystem for our own gain without hesitation.

which leads me to my next point. urban sprawl can be vastly reduced with the simple concept "build up, not out."

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The population sprawl in the US has nothing to do with the tigers, and I don't really see population sprawl the issue so much as I see the hunting as trophies and for "religious" paraphernalia

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im not talking about the US. and what you mentioned, as well, is a huge source of discontent to me too. i have no problem with hunting if you use the resources you take. but for trophies? thats wrong.

edit: pat, i see you lurking. i want your insight here.

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Urban sprawl and population growth aren't the tigers main problem.
Poachers are.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

its a deadly combo. but in that instance, i meant more generalized. probably should have been more specific. i just dont want to see such a prolific creature go down in my time.

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I'm in downtown LA right now....probably 4 miles from the La Brea tar pits.

That place is full of dead dire wolves, sabretooth tigers, mammoths and giant sloths...all of which are extinct.
Formidable animals in their own time, but gone.

Why are tigers any more special?
Is it because humans are killing them instead of a tar pit?

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Hold my beer and watch this...

they arnt any more special. i never implied that. i said they are prolific, magnificent creatures, which they are. i dont want to see anything go extinct. i mean, this whole thread was supposed to be, hey, tigers are close to being extinct in the wild. thats pretty shitty! yeah, thats pretty sad. im not hawking for money, or anything. i just saw a link on cnn.com yesterday checking the market, and posted it. thats why it came up.

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i was responding to your comment about them being in no danger of extinction.

the US is consistently asked to do more than it's fair share in every aspect of the world, but as the most advanced country in conservation biology (Cornell, the big 10 schools, oregon, texas a+m... the list goes on) and the country with the most money that people are willing to separate with, it's only to be expected.

the animals that elicit emotional response from the general public (charismatic megafauna, typically) are (big), furry, and identifiable, either by fur color and patterns or geographic area. these animals typically gain respect and admiration from afar due to zoos and thus the WWF reaches out to the US, because there are stakeholders in the US.

this is a response to other things i read:

yes, some animals do die off naturally, and extinction is a cycle of life. however there are many species of endangered plants and animals that have had their timeline severely shortened or altered by anthropogenic activity. typically, this is overhunting and habitat destruction, like line cuts and perforation pockets.

i'm not sure that many insects are going extinct every day, and the difference between that and these megafauna is that there are thousands of insects and arachnids and not all of them are categorized. also, no organisms in the class insecta can be listed on the endangered species act, and i believe CITES does not acknowledge insects either. insects also, as a "k" species, have less an issue of extinction because of the massive amounts of alleles provides in the massive birthings. they are engineered by nature to be food for the rest of the food chain, so many species (like mayflys, see the hendrickson hatch) hatch, breed, and die. they perform no long term or complicated services to ecosystems.

i know for a fact people get very upset in NY when the frosted elfin butterflys are in trouble (eastern part of state) due to poor blue lupin habitat. there is huge protection for wetlands, mostly because of plants and the services provided by those ecosystems.



and i want to point out that i think zoos are pretty awesome when regarding the way the animals are treated.

If an animal exists only in captivity, then for all practical purposes, it is extinct. It is nothing more than a museum relic at that point.

Bengal Tiger


Siberian Tiger


Sumatran Tiger


Indochinese Tiger


Mayalan Tiger


South China Tiger

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"Go out and run 'em."
- Lindy Ruff, 23 Feb. 2007

Then I'll reiterate...are pandas extinct?
They only exist in some form of captivity.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

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"Go out and run 'em."
- Lindy Ruff, 23 Feb. 2007

I'm sorry. I can't feel bad for a panda. Stupid animals can't figure out how to mate. And if tigers require 1,000 acres per male or some rediculous amount of space, then they are likely a relic of an older world. Sorry, that may be a bit harsh. I find tigers beautiful, graceful and majestic. It's a shame. But their territorial needs are a bit antiquated. Hunting them for trophies, on the other hand, is a total waste.

Ham

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Do you believe yet?

So the tigers need to get with the times, and the responsibility doesn't fall on us at all? What an American response.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual