“SAVE OUR SOULS” – THE BIG CATS

Own up or not, most of us are now roughly tired of hearing about endangered tigers. We sympathised when we saw the TV commercial at first. Now we merely give a hard thought before we tune in to another channel on spotting a save-our-tigers-ad. The way we ignore newspaper advertisements now, is better left unsaid.

Seriously, why get in blasphemy and care shit about just some other species of animal getting extinct? I mean, we’ve already witnessed myriad number of animal species getting wiped out – The Black Rhinoceros, the laughing owl, and the golden toad. Forget those; we have the biggest example of all – the dinosaur family.

What comes has to go. Isn’t that the law of Mother Nature herself? Why so much of sudden hoopla then? Why so much of attention, money, reports, committees and conservation focus this time on tigers?

Interestingly, there IS an answer. The tigers are not GETTING extinct. WE are making them go extinct. We’re killing them. It’s a mass murder. And chords are being struck harder this time, because apparently it’s our National Animal. It’s just like crowning a prince and making him the King one fine day, only to shoot a bullet into his forehead the next day.

Statistics show that India had closely 7000 tigers in 1937. And today, it’s a disgraceful 1411 figure. Looking at numbers, we might think, coming down from 7000 to 1411 in seventy three years is kind of okayish. What’s the big deal, then? But the irony of this number can be understood only when we realize that it’s not the balance on our prepaid mobile connection which HAS to come down with time.

Let’s look at it like this. The world human population seventy three years ago was nearly 2 billion. Today the count is 6692 billion (which is still INCREASING). And the population of tigers has gone DOWN; forget the number count.

And again, coming back to the point, the number count is not going down on its own. WE are reducing the balance talktime. WE are using up someone else’s phone account to make OUR personal calls. Tigers are being killed for traditional medicines. They’re hunted for their meat and skins as well as their bones. Immoral hunters kill them indiscriminately for measly amounts on the behest of bigger fishes. And the sad part is protectors of tigers have become hand in glove with these hunters. They get their fair amount of share in bribe.

Some people feel the tiger fur is an exotic type of clothing. Or a fancy carpet. What they don’t realize is that they wouldn’t be very happy if some animal used a person’s skin in the same way.

What now? There’s practically much less we as individuals can do to confront this universal issue. However, simply showing firm support to the cause can do huge help. Unity of the people of our entire nation can create an overwhelming effect. For that, people need to be aware. It might surprise you to know that are STILL lots of people who have no clue about this predicament. Awareness has to spread. For that we need to show support. When there’s a concern related to us humans, we are thoroughly surrounded by more than adequate number of banners, hoardings and advertisements to create awareness. Take AIDS, the Swine flu and polio for example. Whereas, the number of supporters and sponsors for the Tiger Campaign is still too low.

We need to act and we need to act fast. Or otherwise, there shall soon come time when our grandchildren will have just soft toys of tigers left for them. And we’ll have our children explaining them, “Like your grandpa, there USED to be these wonderful creatures called tigers.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Concept and topic: Courtesy Anita and Forum Kapadia.

Statistics and other details: The Internet, Save Our Tigers initiative by Aircel, and this blog post.