Lets see how good blogger is on android. If it goes fine then will use it for tech blogs.
Another good news for the indian conservationists. Just another step towards saving the Indian tigers from extinction. India's 38th tiger reserve was opened in Kerala on 19th Feb, 2010 by the environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh.
Below are the excerpts from the report published in times of india website.
............PALAKKAD (Kerala): India's 38th tiger reserve and Kerala's second was Friday declared open by environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh. It would be known as the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve.
There has been a sharp decline in the number of tigers in India, with only 1,411 of them left, according to official estimates.
The tiger reserve was known as the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary when it was set up in 1973 in a 285-sq-km protected area in Chittur area of Palakkad.
Another 358 sq km of forests were added, and the tiger reserve now has an area of 643 sq km.
It has a rich diversity of animal life. It also has a variety of trees, including teak, neem, sandalwood and rosewood.
Kerala's first tiger reserve -- Periyar Tiger Reserve -- is situated in Thekkadi in Idukki district.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Indias-38th-tiger-reserve-opens-/articleshow/5595228.cms
Finally some ray of hope is seen for our indian tigers. I must say that it may not be enough but surly holds its significance to show that at least something is being done at the top level of policy making now. Somebody at top have realized the criticality of the situation.
Now if only we could force harsher and stricter punishment and enforce the law dedicatedly. I would still argue to have a capital punishment for endangering the national animal.
There is a news that the second half of the budget session this april 2010, will see a bill where there will be an amendment that will have harsher and stricter punishment for the poachers of 'category 1' animals. Tigers, Lions, rhinoes and elephants fall in this category.
Lets hope that it will deter poachers and their helpers from eyeing our national animal and other endangered animals.
Our tigers may have been facing difficult time in surviving the odds but we still have some hope left as the 3 tigers (A male and two female) left in Sariska are reported to start marking their territory. It is a good sign because if a tiger start marking the territory then it means that he has accepted the new place as his or her home. I have a report below published in HINDU a few days back.
A happy celebration at Sariska tiger reserve
Sunny Sebastian
SARISKA: A tiger park which had brought ignominy to it by losing all its wild tigers to poachers five years ago regained some of its lost glory as experts and authorities got together to celebrate the first anniversary of the re-introduction of tigers in Sariska Tiger Reserve here on Saturday.
The day was the anniversary of the foundation of another celebrated tiger sanctuary – the Jim Corbett National Park -- but Union Forests and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh chose to be in Sariska, now the laboratory for tiger habitat experiments.
The Minister and the experts who included Rajesh Gopal of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India, who carried out the experiment on “Species recovery plan” successfully, talked about the need of both global and local initiatives to protect the world’s tigers from various types of dangers, including from poachers and extremists. The presentations indicated that the tigers in the Project Tiger sanctuaries -- barring a few -- are protected while those wandering outside them are at the mercy of the elements and human beings.
Mr. Ramesh said 37 tiger reserves accounted for 1,400 tigers in the country which was almost 70 per cent of the global population of the big cats.
Yet as many as 16 of the tiger reserves themselves remained fragile, some of them seriously under threat from Maoist extremists and others from poaching.
“Project Tiger’s biggest threat is from poaching. In the next session of Parliament we will introduce a Bill to amend the Wildlife Act to provide for more stringent laws against poaching,” he said.
“The status of tigers is okay in tiger reserves in 17 States but their condition is very poor in different forest areas,” said Mr. Gopal. The Project Tiger areas cover only six per cent of the country’s total forest area, he pointed out. Seven tiger reserves are facing the threat from Left extremism.
In his final assessment, he placed the rankings of the tiger reserves as: Good 12; satisfactory 9; and poor 16.
And as for the Sariska tigers -- three of them, re-introduced between June 2008 and February 2009 -- they are doing well.
“The Sariska Tiger Reserve is in its 31st year. Re-introduction of tigers enabled us to gain confidence that Sariska is still relevant,” said R. N. Mehrotra, Principal Chief Conservator, Forests (Wildlife), Rajasthan, in his opening remarks.
“Sariska tigers are doing wonderfully well and two more would be introduced in the park by the end of the year as per the revival plan,” Mr. Ramesh said.
Why a tiger is killed?
Another one was killed in Kazhiranga area in last few days. The body of 7 to 8 years male tiger was found on Feb 12, 2010. I am trying to gather a detailed report on this incident.
Meanwhile I was thinking of discussing the reasons why a tiger is killed.
Tigers are killed for body parts used in traditional medicines. The biggest reason is that our tigers are losing their habitat due to logging. As they lose habitat, they lose prey, which means they sometimes turn to domestic livestock for food which is easily found in the nearby villages located in the peripheral areas of forests. This makes them unpopular with local villagers, who may shoot them in revenge as it may have happened in near Kazhiranga Tiger reserv.
And tigers are killed for other reasons: they're hunted for their meat and skins as well as their bones, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Poaching of tigers has become an increasing problem in recent years, and it's taking a heavy toll on these mighty cats.
Most Siberian tigers from russia and Royal Bengal Tiger from India are killed for export to China. As a member of CITES, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is (allegedly) committed to stopping the illegal trade of animals, such as tigers, and consequently the decline of their population. However, tiger products are in evidence in China. The State Council of the PRC however reported that existing stockpiles of tiger derivatives in China were obtained before China joined CITES.
Tigers are falling prey to unscrupulous hunters who are indiscriminately killing them for measly amounts on the behest of bigger fishes. The sad part is the protectors of tigers have become hand in glove with the poachers in killing one of the magnificent creations of GOD. The main reason behind killing the magnificent beast is two folds. The first being feeding the insatiable hunger of especially the Chinese in supplying tiger body parts for so called medicinal purpose. They are supposed to produce medicinal products out of the tigers.
The second part is many a degenerated souls put up a cowardly act of putting on tiger skin adorned garments to pump up their ego. In India many tigers have been poached to satisfy the Tibetans who wear them as traditional dresses. Recently His holiness the Dalai Lama has issued a decree against it. You may be shocked to know that recently in India one national tiger reserve (Sireska) was found to be devoid of tigers as all had been poached. To cut short at this rate of tiger culling our next generation may not be able to look at tigers in real life but in photos only. As some one said the tiger is hemorrhaging, unless we get up & do something positive about it it may be gone for ever.
They are only being killed illegally, Tigers are a protected species, and it is illegal to import any part of them. The ban is world wide and introduced by the UN but there are many curative properties attributed, but not correctly, to products from Tigers and other strong animals such as Lion and Bear. Many primitive cultures, and others not so primitive, believe that eating part of a tiger would mean the person absorbs some of its strength and courage.
Some people feel the fur is an exotic type of clothing. Or a fancy rug. 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.
Finally people have started to move. We did have a big chunk of newspaper talking about this issue. As the news suggests that this 'Save our tigers' campaign was targetted at the urban population of india which had been indifferent in the past. But now urban population has started to move for this critical issue that had been behind the curtains till now. I am sure the politicians and policy-makers will also take note of this and will realize that they are answerable to the population of india. They can enjoy till the day people start waking up and start asking them the questions. When the common man of india will put them in the witness-box and ask them his question, they will have nowhere to hide.
Its really shocking and very disturbing. Are we some kind of enemy for this creature? Is it some kind of revenge we are taking on this poor animal? If this kind of thing had happened to a human and his family, we would have riot kind of thing in this country by their cast or community people. People would have started killing other humans in the name of revenge. That is the mentality we indians have now. But since this is a poor animal, these killing does not affect anyone.
My friends, we are moving towards an era where the nature will start showing the consequences for the misdeed our specie has done. People still think that if one specie go extinct, nobody gets affected. Thats a wrong assumption. This animal is at the top of the food chain, that means our very own existence depends upon it. Why? For starters, the food chain is the very basic part of the nature, Whole nature depends upon it. At a time only those species co exist which are very part of the same food chain. Start breaking this chain and the after effects are not very far away. Natural extinction is part of natural process but it happens oven a span of a few thousand or more years. What we human have done is that we have made so many species go extinct in such a short period that it is showing signs in the natural calamities. These natural calamities are the reply of the nature to us humans who have played wrongfully with other creatures.
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