Animal Rights: Saving Wild Tigers

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Save the Wild Tigers When you hear the word tiger, what do you think about? The living, breathing, animal, or tiger skin rugs and unproven medicinal treatments. However, tigers may not be around much longer to even be thought about except as a legend in history. They may be gone forever within the next ten to twenty years if nothing is done to save them NOW. According to recent research tiger populations have plummeted 97% over the past century, due to poaching, habitat loss, and natural prey depletion. There may be as few as 3,200 (Siberian Tigers) wild tigers left. The tiger is the largest, most venerated, and most vulnerable feline predator on earth. It has been around since the Early Pleistocene Era. The most ancient of the remaining six (formerly 9) species of tigers is the South China Tiger, also known as the Amoy or Xiamen. Only 6 feet long and 400 pounds (males) it is the smallest and the rarest. There are only about 65+ adults left in captivity, and is thought to be extinct in the wild as recent as 1990. The Siberian or Amur tiger is the largest living wild tiger, weighing in at almost 700 pounds and 10 feet long (males). The Liger is larger, but it is a man-made hybrid living only in captivity, CREATED by mating a tigress (Amur or Bengal tiger) with a male African Lion. The resulting offspring can grow up to be 12 to 15 feet long and weigh up to one thousand pounds or more. Depending on where the few remaining tigers live today, they are hated, or worshipped as a symbol for saving the environment or a commodity to be killed and sold for its pelt, and other body parts. Athletic teams and military units all over the world use the tiger as an icon. Advertisers use them to sell everything from gas to miracle potions promising eternal youth and vitality. Most people living on the outskirts of tiger country regard them with fear and hate, for tourism

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