As with the Endangered Earth Journal, this week starts the 'gathering' of information for my Tiger in Crisis websites. And as with the Endangered Earth Journalthe first task is to find ‘credible’ sources of endangered tiger information.
Finding sources of information for any subject, let alone
one so complicated as the issue of endangered tigers (or endangered species)
can be quite a task; for a number of reasons.
Take for example the Malayan tiger cub pictured above. Had
this been just a few years ago, this tiger cub would not be a ‘Malayan’ tiger cub
it would be an ‘Indochinese’ tiger cub.
And that’s true.
I still recall how odd it seemed when I realized
the 'Indochinese' tigers I was photgraphing on one day at the San Diego Zoo were 'Malayan’ tigers on the very next day.
No, the tigers in the habitat hadn’t changed; but the
information about the tigers had. Apparently researchers had come to the
conclusion there was yet one more sub-species of tigers in addition to the then
five sub-species of tigers currently recognized. And that was the Malayan
tiger.
And as I mentioned in the Endangered Earth Journal,
information about endangered species is not only constantly changing, it is
often not always agreed upon.
And to complicate matter is when one tries to ‘confirming’ information
about a tiger issue.
Panthera had just sent out a press release about their
recent acquisition of the Save the Tiger Fund. I had followed the activities of
the Fund for years, I thought this was an interesting development, so I wanted
to learn out more about the details of this aquisition.
Panthera’s press
release said if someone wanted additional
information about the acquisition they
could contact their media person. So I did. In fact I contacted their media
person three times over a three week period. Each time, the media person
assured me someone would get back to me.
That was nine weeks ago and I have still not heard from
anyone from Panthera. And I don’t expect to.
I also put in a call to the World Wildlife Fund (in
Washington DC) and asked them to have someone call me to discuss tiger issues
with them. That was five weeks ago and I have not heard back from them either.
And I guess I don’t expect to hear from them either (however to be fair, I probably
owe them two more calls).
However on the ‘up’ side, when I called the US Fish and
Wildlife Service to talk about their tiger conservation efforts around the
globe, they responded the same day. I expect (and hope) the US Fish and
Wildlife Service will be an ongoing source of ‘reliable’ tiger information as I
work to update the Tigers in Crisis websites over this next year.
So this next month will be spent looking for other ‘credible’
sources of endangered tiger information. And for sources that don’t mind discussing the
issue.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information about endangered tigers go to www.TigersinCrisis.com
For more information about endangered species go to www.Bagheera.com
