All Is Not Lost
To seek good environmental news nowadays feels like seeking fragments of Earth-friendly flotsam bobbing on toxic seas of human depredation of our living world. But at times glimmers of hope help ward off despair.
Herewith three glimmers from the world of tigers:
First, a survey, announced in 2016, found wild tiger numbers up worldwide for the first time in a century. See Survey finds tiger numbers up 2010-2016
(It’s sad indeed that we have to consider tiger numbers in the three-to-four thousands as a success, when at the beginning of the last century the number the tiger population was estimated at 100,000.)
Note there are six existing subspecies of tiger (according to National Geographic), of which there are stunning pix and capsule descriptions to be found here.
“Subspecies” are populations of tigers that are separated by geographic range and/or morphology; all can viably interbreed, but they do not cross paths. Bengal tigers—the ones you’re most likely to see in a zoo—make up about 70% of the aggregate number of wild tigers. With the other 30% split up among the remainder, the risk that any single subspecies could get wiped out is great. Indochinese and South China tigers are especially imperiled.
Continue reading “Some “Good” Environmental News: Tigers Again”