Indian Tiger Park Now Tiger-Free 170
Panna National Park is now officially tiger free making it the second Indian tiger sanctuary to no longer have a tiger population. A census was conducted in the park, after authorities reported no Bengal Tiger sightings for a long time. Three years ago the park had a population of 24 tigers; however, none were found this year. Forest minister Rajendra Shukla is optimistic about the news and says, "Panna is our only park which has lost on this count. Three of state's reserve forests — Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench — have been adjudged among the best managed tiger reserves in the country."
Tiger-free tiger park... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you say "you're doing it wrong" in their local language?
Re:Tiger-free tiger park... (Score:5, Funny)
Tiger Park
you keep saying these words....i do not think they mean what you think they mean
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Is it anything like a Car Park?
I can't help but imagine dozens of sleeping tigers lined up in rows.
Re:Tiger-free tiger park... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you say "you're doing it wrong" in their local language?
"Please hold while we bring up your account"
Cheese shop (Score:5, Funny)
Not much of a cheese shop, is it?
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I'm sure it is very clean, being uncontaminated by tigers and all.
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Have you tried turning it off and on again?
What the fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm assuming too much; I was sick the day they taught tiger maintenance at tiger school.
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I saw an article about this about a year ago on TV. The tigers are being illegally captured for their skins and all. This has been going on for years, but the Indian government has kept denying it was happening, and did nothing about it. Now we have the result: a tiger-free tiger park.
Re:What the fuck (Score:5, Funny)
1. Setup Tiger farm
2. Economic crisis
3. Sell to Chinese herbalist
4. Profit.
Re:What the fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
Poaching. Pure and simple. And these governments simply don't set their priorities on conserving endangered species. First they tend to enrich themselves, next they enrich their friends and associates, and if they EVER get done serving their own interests, the rest of what's left over goes to the people. They probably have no idea of what a budget committee is and no public involvement.
Re:What the fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
Poaching. Pure and simple. And these governments simply don't set their priorities on conserving endangered species.
In addition to this, maintaining any kind of boundary around a tiger preserve is going to be a costly, manpower intensive operation. Likely the park didn't get that kind of staff or budget, and left the gate open, so to speak.
Tigers are large. They're territorial apex predators. Each adult male needs lots and lots of room to himself, which means a park of a couple dozen is going to cover a wide territory. Plus, I doubt the park was at capacity with 24, so it probably was set aside with more room than the bare minimum for its now departed population.
As a result, the park's borders are going to be long. Unless they have scads of park rangers, or whatever they're called in this case, they can't police the entirety of it. A poacher could get in unopposed. And given the rarity of the cats, poaching them is probably lucrative enough that they can bribe the, at most, one or two officials who might see them to look the other way.
cost benefit analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
Start guarding the park. anyone found inside for any reason without evidence of poaching will be killed on sight. People found poaching will be horribly public tortured for a month and then executed. Put severed heads on stakes around the borders of the park. Anyone found with tiger parts in the country will be immediately executed. Quite simply, they need to make entering the park seem like a automatic death sentence. Until they show a will to go farther than the poachers, they will lose and tigers will die.
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Perhaps they should start demonstrating that they value tigers more than monkeys.
Perhaps you should. Do you do anything besides bare necessities and supporting the tiger population? Do you do anything at all to support the tiger population?
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Start guarding the park. anyone found inside for any reason without evidence of poaching will be killed on sight.
As a positive side effect evolutionary pressure will get us rid of tourists with bad orientation and inability to read maps.
Re:cost benefit analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
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So, there will then be two effects:
1. The price of tigers goes through the roof.
2. Poachers come in groups of several dozen with machine guns and grenade launchers in case anyone catches them.
Re:What the fuck (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition to this, maintaining any kind of boundary around a tiger preserve is going to be a costly, manpower intensive operation.
And if there's one this India lacks, it's manpower.
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Right, but you don't want just any manpower here. I suspect being a park ranger in a tiger preserve is one of those jobs that requires more than just a week of on the job training to do. Particularly since it offers several ways to fuck up and die if you aren't careful and knowledgeable about the risks. Never mind that you have to pay the rangers enough that the poachers can't bribe them easily, so it's not a situation where you can throw legions of underpaid unskilled workers at the problem and expect i
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I suspect being a park ranger in a tiger preserve is one of those jobs that requires more than just a week of on the job training to do.
Particularly since it offers several ways to fuck up and die if you aren't careful and knowledgeable about the risks.
I would be surprised of their current employees got much more than few weeks of apprenticeship.
Never mind that you have to pay the rangers enough that the poachers can't bribe them easily, so it's not a situation where you can throw legions of underpaid unskilled workers at the problem and expect it to go away.
Offer midsized rewards for blowing the whistle on other rangers that take bribes. Now the poachers have to bribe virtually every ranger they may encounter. Could get expensive if you have a legion of rangers.
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The key is to offer hunters a much rarer prize. Declare poachers fair game. Once shot, having them stuffed and mounted is also legal (see a ranger to have your prey tagged as fair killed). The parks might be strapped for resources, but there's probably a few rich hunters willing to spend scads on the chance to one up everyone at the club once and for all.
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This is the part I never understand. What on earth are they poaching the tigers for? Tigers are actually a fairly common animal in captivity.
The only explanation I can come up with is that there are people who will pay money to their own, or own the skin of, one of the last $ANIMAL simply because it is the last, and for no other reason. I think there was a Star Trek episode about that.
Re:What the fuck (Score:5, Informative)
This is the part I never understand. What on earth are they poaching the tigers for?
There is a multimillion dollar demand in Asian countries for, among other pieces of the tigers, the male tiger penis. It is seen in many Asian cultures as a sacred aphrodisiac. From personal experience with people who have actually contributed to the black market, the penis from the tiger bred in captivity is not as effective as one taken from the wild.
Whether it is scientifically proven that it actually does anything at all is still uncertain. Personally I think it is a placebo, but to some cultures, a sacred placebo is preferable to the most effective medicine without religious/cultural connotations.
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Well, since tigers are going extinct, it should be obvious that they don't have much use of said body part. Why not have someone else have it who puts more value on it?
I'm just kidding, right. But it's still ironic. Maybe someone should tell them about rabbits.
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Ah. So idiots buy the dead tiger parts. That explains it.
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From personal experience, since 0>0 is false, I still do not see the logic. You could give these guys shavings from a slashdotters toenails and they'd never be able to tell the difference.
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The thing about a lot of Chinese herbal remedies is that the ones have a big fuss made over them, were the ones recommended for the Emperor and the aristocracy.
You know what's also supposed to be a good medicine for building yang in Chinese medicine? Walnuts. But that's clearly not good enough, not special and unique enough, for s
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First they tend to enrich themselves, next they enrich their friends and associates, and if they EVER get done serving their own interests, the rest of what's left over goes to the people.
Well, at least we've exported American Democracy to one place in the world!
I am not offering a defense (Score:2)
of this reserves managers, however I think India has a whole lot more to worry about than tigers. Yeah, while I sit in my comfy chair in an air conditioned building I can see where other people get off beating on countries for not doing what we want.
The simple matter is, India at least is trying to protect the tigers. They also are trying to manage a large population of people who essentially live like they have for thousands of years and bring them into what many of us would still not consider acceptable
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Hey, the Bush administration was over two years ago. Now it's Obama's problem ...
Oh, wait, you were talking about India. Sorry, got a bit confused there for a second.
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Hey, it worked for the elephants!
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Those people who were supposed to notice the reduction in tigers were missing as well.
Their boss went out to find them, but he did not come back either.
The senior administrator, the only employee left suggested the tigers moved on due to dwindling local food supply.
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We thought it was a themed hunting park.
For a measly $10,000 you too can try to bag your own trophy tiger in a natural habitat...
We still have spots left in our other 3 sites, but they're going fast, so contact your Extinction Hunting Tours Representative now before there all gone, forever...
The Market will decide! (Score:3, Insightful)
Obvious isn't it? "The Market will decide". This famous beastie called the market will decide what survives and what doesn't... and in India where there's a fair few people living on a dollar a day (say a hundred million or so people) then the idea of making a couple of thousand dollars for a days work hunting down and killing (poaching) a tiger seems quite attractive. What would you do for 6 years your current salary as a day's work?
India - developing country - limited resources - can't fund its nature res
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Re:What the fuck (Score:5, Funny)
Q1. Why do elephants paint their 'nads red ?
A1. So they can hide in cherry trees.
Q2. What's the loadest sound in the jungle ?
A2. A giraffe eating cherries.
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Tigers need to snack on other animals in order to survive. So its not just the tiger population that we need to be worried about. Its quite likely that the animals that tigers had for breakfast are disappearing as well.
And of course there's poaching.
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Electronic tracking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Electronic tracking? (Score:4, Funny)
They haven't deployed their multi-billion ID cards to the tigers yet....
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If you've never worked on a wildlife preserve in a country like this, I guess it's hard to understand how understaffed and underfunded they are. I worked on a rhino preserve and these people were happy we brought boots, shovels and hoses for them to use. That's how little they had and how little funding they got. A man actually almost broke down into tears over a waterhose...imagine what they'd do with GPS.
Just because technology exists does not mean it is available.
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They weren't tracking these things electronically? The technology to track animals has existed for years and surely they would have access to electronic tags and GPS tracking devices.
That would make it easier for the poachers to find the tigers. Not sure how it'd help the rangers though.
Coincidentally... (Score:5, Funny)
Tony the Tiger says... (Score:1, Funny)
They're....GOOOONNNNE!!
(No, really, this is awful news)
Tiger park profit (Score:5, Funny)
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Actually, one of the best ways of preserving a species is making it profitable.
http://books.google.com/books?id=zhXIXRiWPVYC
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In this particular case, "profit" is exactly what's driving them to extinction. Idiots demand bits of the tiger anatomy for "natural medicine" (read: impotency cures). Poachers supply them with their magical erection-granting kibbles & bits, slowly killing off the last of the species in the process, and making a tidy profit from their crimes.
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The free market in action! The invisible hand!
Maybe this explains why... (Score:3, Funny)
I haven't seen Tony the Tiger ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_the_Tiger [wikipedia.org] ) for a while on TV.
Maybe he is from that Park and he has just vanished... ;-(
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Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans are destroying everything natural in this world. I just hope we destory things faster so that the Earth can wipe us out and then start over with some newer species that will hopefully not rip the planet apart the way we do. The way we handle everything natural (trees, animals, air, water, soil), we deserve to be added to the list of species that have gone extinct.
What's really amusing is watching people try to rationalize why they deserve to exist. Right, because the species that chooses to force animals to mate in cages in order to be mass-slaughtered for food and clothing, the species that tears down forests to clear space for agrigulture and cities, the species whose members will literally do anything to "get ahead" of their neighbour in terms of money and power, the species who does nothing more than crave constant entertainment and shoveling their faces with as much food as they can get their fat hands on... yes, surely this is the species that deserves to dominate the planet.
Of course, the most disgusting and saddening thing is that almost all people don't see anything wrong with us as a species. That somehow since we're just flesh and blood, everything we do is "natural". Yeah ok. Go back to drinking your Coke or Pepsi. It has absolutely no benefit to your body. But do it anyway, because it tastes good. That's all that matters.
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Agreed, same here butI already posted too.
I would have given parent +1 Insightful. I do not have to fully agree with him. Nevertheless, intelligent beings that refuse to question their way of living by looking at it from a different angle are not so bright in my humble opinion.
The troll mod seems to make Slashdot audience looks like narrow-minded.
You go first (Score:4, Insightful)
You go first. Seriously. Go kill yourself and reduce the burden on the planet. Put your money where your mouth is. If you have kids, kill them too. And everyone you love. No? You don't want to? Then go fuck yourself. I'm sick of people like you who project their own feelings of shame and inadequacy on the entire population.
Have a great day,
-b
Thank God. (Score:1)
sad (Score:1, Insightful)
Magnificent animals.
Meanwhile the human population of India goes exponential.
Bribes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bribes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly that could be true.
Unlike cops in countries like UK and USA, Indian cops don't get paid that much. Neither do they have great insurance coverages: a measly $2,500 is paid to their family if they are killed. Add to that weapons that are antiquated even by 1940s standards. So, you have deadly combination of corruption.
Why would any fool throw away his life for a miserable tiger? So that his family suffers?
No. It would be far better to make sure he's alive & safe & rich. So a tiger gets killed: so what?
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Slavery WAS illegal in Britain for a long time since 1800s.
That didn't prevent slave ships sailing from Africa to USA (before civil war).
If poaching were effectively prevented, then consumers would shift to other tastes.
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very possible indeed.
So tiger-free is good now? (Score:2)
Hopefully the tigers just went elsewhere (other than to the great big tiger preserve in the sky). No, I did not read the article.
The Tiger (Score:3, Insightful)
William Blake
Given that I'm a strong environmentalist my bias is unabashedly strong, but as a confirmed atheist even I can say that if we loose this species by way of our ignorance and greed we may have grounds for establishing original sin in our kind.
Re:The Tiger (Score:5, Funny)
Given that I'm a strong environmentalist my bias is unabashedly strong, but as a confirmed atheist even I can say that if we loose this species by way of our ignorance and greed we may have grounds for establishing original sin in our kind.
Depending where you loose it, it is probably a crime as well.
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Poor little cute things... (Score:2)
What's so special about tigers that makes them more important than all the other species that we've hunted to extinction?
-b
rock (Score:5, Funny)
Turns out Lisa's rock really did work.
ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow (Score:2)
Free as in beer (Score:3, Funny)
Is this one of the 4 Freedoms I keep hearing about ?
Well thats a relief.. (Score:3, Funny)
Tigers are clearly a danger to the parks visitors so the new visitor safety campaign appears to be a great success and tourists can now roam freely around the tiger park without worrying that they or their children might become a tiger snack.
Poaching and the rise of china too. (Score:4, Insightful)
The salary and benefits of a typical forest ranger in India is about 250$ a month, while his nephew in the city with barely passable English makes some 700$ a month in IT, phone bank, help desk jobs and more if technically qualified. Any wonder the warden turns a blind eye to poaching and accepts bribes?
Re:Poaching and the rise of china too. (Score:4, Interesting)
If these animals are so economically valuable, why aren't we 'farming' them? I mean, instead of killing of the last 24 in the park, it seems like you should get much larger land, and raise the tigers, so you have several hundred of them, and you can fund the preservation of the tigers/elephants/whatever by selling off the body parts of a few per year.
It's like this - chickens, cattle and pigs are at very little risk of going extinct, *because* of their economic value. Why don't we apply the same principle to these endagered species to make them *not* endangered anymore? If some Chinese Billionaire wants to pay the equivalent of $1 Million USD to have a Bengal tiger rug, then shouldn't we be exploiting that by selling off the coat of one tiger and using the million bucks to fund raising more tigers?
It seems to me that *carefully managed*, very limited, legitimate, legal sale of such animal products can ensure the survival of those species, but by taking a stance of trying to completely outlaw all traffic in those products, we actually put those animals at *greater* risk, because farmers/ranchers do a much better job of managing their 'herds' than poachers do.
No farmer is going to kill off so much of his livestock that he doesn't have enough left for successful breeding, but poachers just kill whatever they can and take it.
You can joke all you want (Score:4, Informative)
O RLY (Score:2)
Three of state's reserve forests - Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench - have been adjudged among the best managed tiger reserves in the country."
Have you counted the tigers there recently?
If it Pays, then it Stays (Score:2)
In the third-world wildlife either pays for itself or it vanishes, plain and simple. With a desperate population on the verge of starvation, any resource not viewed as life-improving will quickly vanish. That's why tourism and well-regulated sport hunting are so important to the management of wildlife in the third world. It's also why game ranches for commercial purposes are a necessary tool for the successful restoration of many endangered species. John Stossel's video article below is very illuminating, a
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Right, so to save tigers we have to breed them to be shot at by rich, fat assholes.
Fuck that.
Who cares (Score:2)
In a world where people thing eating body parts of animals brings good luck and potentcy, wage war, give Brittney Spears a Grammy, do we seriously consider preserving Tiger populations?
I think we expect too much of ourselves when stopping and taking a good hard look at the majority of our priorities are.
I don't think we are getting smarter collectively anymore, if anything we've turned on the stupid and are drinking deep from the spiggot.
Umm... (Score:2, Funny)
> Three years ago the park had a population of 24 tigers, however none were found this year.
In a completely unrelated story, 24 flabulously wealthy men around the world are suing an undisclosed business because they were not actually able to get erections after taking a certain hideously expensive medicine.
Yeah, sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
They should have evolved a bulletproof skin, a gun on their forehead and a lawyer on their back.
One to protect them from direct attack by humans, one to protect their home with force and the third to do the same - only in court.
And even that probably wouldn't do them much good considering that "civilized" humans had up until recently found "local" humans to be less than those tigers and little more than apes.
When I say "civilized" and "local" I mean white and brown.
Heck! White humans have nearly killed off an entire continent's population of red humans - who had guns and horses and whatnot...
And oversized cats should "evolve".
Yeah, sure...
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They should have evolved a bulletproof skin, a gun on their forehead and a lawyer on their back.
ITYM "a frickin' laser beam attached to their forehead".
Naah... (Score:2)
There were no lasers prior to 1960s. Way to late for them to start evolving one.
On the other hand... HAD they evolved 'frickin' lasers on their heads human armed conflicts would have been far more interesting.
If we could pry some of those lasers of off their heads and used them ourselves. And if all those lawyers on their backs would let us.
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IANAT (I am not a tigerologist), so there might be some truth to that, but main reason is usually stated as human invasion of their territory.
As someone else has put it already - they require quite a bit of their own private space. [slashdot.org]
And the lack of resistance to bullets.
Which animal would that be... (Score:2)
...that can make a stand to a post-gunpowder human?
And unicorns and aliens don't count.
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Besides dogs and cats (unless we are counting those in Korea and Vietnam) those are all domestic animals that we are keeping in cages of various sizes to fatten them up.
So we could eat them.
That is not evolution. That is domestication. Done by us. Humans.
Tigers are at least keeping some of their dignity cause you have to actually shoot the beast with a gun.
You can't just walk up to it and hit it between the eyes with a hammer.
Also, had you said chickens, I might have to argue how we have actually created th
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Aside from lions, spiders and coconuts, all of those are on the endangered species list. [wikipedia.org] Lion is on a vulnerable species list [wikipedia.org].
Spiders are small enough for us not to give a damn about them, and they hatch from eggs that we don't eat, so like flies, ants or cockroaches we let them live as long as they don't step into our path.
Should they become a significant enough menace... I can very well see them going the way of the tribble. [memory-alpha.org]
And we grow coconuts so we could eat them. So much for them standing up to us.
Re:if evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
Tigers aren't going extinct, they're becoming a captive species.
The largest population of tigers in the world is in the USA. Hell, there are more tigers in Texas than there are in the wild.
It's weird, sick and sad in equal measure. Poor bastards. This international symbol of power and grace is being wiped out in the wild by fear, ignorance and superstition and becomes little more than a colourful pet for rich, fat americans.
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You say this as if it's somehow the Americans' fault.
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It's not really the Americans fault. It's twisted that the fact we've allowed them to become such widespread captives is the only thing to save them.
Keeping captive tigers in vast numbers in private hands seems wrong. I don't think for a second that 10% of the captive tigers in the US are there for conservation, they're there to show off the wealth of the owner.
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Keeping captive tigers in vast numbers in private hands seems wrong.
I see nothing wrong with any number of tigers being in private hands. It's the captive/non-captive ratio that bothers me.
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RIP, Jeff Goldblum.
Uuuuuuuh, he's not dead.