San Diego (Christmas) Zoo (2)

As I wrote in my Endangered Earth Journal last night, this week I am in San Diego, California on client business. And when I am in San Diego, I always go to the San Diego Zoo.

I have spent many days at the zoo talking with the animal keepers to learn more about the endangered species they have there.

This month the zoo is dressed up for Christmas and it's great. Despite the weather, the mood is still very festive.

 

Angels With Strings Performing at the San Diego Zoo Christmas Events

The zoo is open late into the evening, and it's nice to to walk around when it is dark.

Tonight, as I was walking about, I could hear the lions roaring through the darkness. And hearing a lion roar when you cannot see it, is a whole different feeling when you can.

But in the midst of all the Holiday Cheer, the heart of the zoo is still the animals. Including the Malayan tiger.

As I said, I have spent quite a bit of time at the San Diego Zoo, and I recall one day, just a few years ago, I went to the zoo to photograph the tigers they had on display. These were Indochinese tigers.

But as I approached the tigers, I saw a new sign at the enclosure. It said 'Malayan tigers'...not Indochinese tigers. And yet they were the same tigers I saw just the day before.

As it turns out, researchers had decided there was a sixth sub-species of tigers; the Malayan tiger. So the tigers the San Diego Zoo had were Malayan tigers not Indochinese tigers.

I will be writing more about the Malayan tiger in my next journal. But for now, here are a few images of the Malayan tigers at the San Diego Zoo (not to be confused with the Indochinese tiger).

 

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For more information about endangered tigers go to www.TigersInCrisis.com

For more information about endangered species go to www.Bagheera.com

The Disappearing Act

One of the first questions I had about the Global Tiger Recovery Project (GTRP) was how they were going to accomplish their mission statement goal to (ii) eradicate poaching, smuggling, and illegal trade of tigers, their parts, and derivatives.

My thoughts were (in that post):

3) I am really curious how the GTRP plans to 'eradicate poaching, smuggling and illegal trade of tigers, their parts and derivatives'. The illegal wildlife trade -which includes the trafficking of illegal tiger parts- is a multi-billion dollar business worldwide.

Ongoing efforts by many governments to curb this trade cannot exactly be considered 'successful' by any means. So what 'model' will the GTRP use in order to achieve this goal? Or are they creating a 'new' model to 'eradicate poaching, smuggling and illegal trade' of this endangered species.

If they have created a new model -which in fact proves to be successful- this would be very good news for all the other endangered species which are the subject of 'poaching, smuggling and illegal trade.

In researching the question of how large the problem of 'illegal trade of tigers parts' was, I came across a 2011 report by the Brookings Institute called The Disappearing Act: The Illicit Trade in Wildlife in Asia.

In the report it states:

"In Southeast Asia alone, where the illegal trade in wildlife is estimated to be worth $8-10 billion per year, wildlife is harvested at many times the sustainable level, decimating ecosystems and driving species to extinction."

And also:

"Although demand markets for wildlife, including illegally traded wildlife are present throughout the world, China ranks as the world’s largest market for illegal trade in wildlife, and wildlife products, followed by the United States."

It's curious how the United States could end up being the second largest market for 'illegal trade' in the world.

The report looks to be a fascinating (43 page) read.

And at the outset it does seem to re-enforce the question of how does the GTRP plan to (ii) eradicate poaching, smuggling, and illegal trade of tigers, their parts, and derivatives.
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For more information on endangered tigers go to www.TigersInCrisis.com

For more information on endangered species go to www.Bagheera.com

The Global Tiger Recovery Program (4)

I left off the last journal entry saying "At the moment, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the ‘spatial monitoring and reporting tool for planning, implementing, monitoring and reporting the effectiveness of law enforcement efforts in breeding sites across the tiger’s habitat.'

So I decided to go have a look on Google to see what I might find out about this 'SMART' system or -as it also closely related to- the MIST system.

I spent a few hours looking around (there are a lot of websites with the term 'smart systems' on them) and I did find a bit of information. And some of it was directly related to saving tigers.

And some of the information I found was specifically about the concept behind the MIST (monitoring and reporting tool) or SMART system (spatial monitoring and reporting tool).

This information was more about the 'big' picture of the MIST or SMART systems. Which is very relevant if one wants to truly understand how it is being used in the context of saving tigers.

I am posting three PDF documents which discuss this tool in order of:

1) How it is directly related and used to save tigers (a specific example).  Link Here

2) How it is 'practically' used for any conservation issue.  Link Here

3) And "you actually expect me to understand what you just said" related. Link Here

This last document is over 240 pages long.

I spent some time going through it....and I am going to spend more time reading it...but I think I want to get a better 'grounding' on the 'basic' concept before I attempt it again (and WAY more time).

I did find a few phone numbers associated with the SMART systems and tigers. So I plan to follow up there as well.

Although I have a better understanding of what these systems are, I am still trying to wrap my mind around how it will be used to help save endangered tigers.

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For more information about endangered tigers go to www.TigersInCrisis.com

For more information about endangered species go to www.Bagheera.com