Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar

By now everyone in urban India will surely be knowing that Tiger owns the coveted title of ‘National animal of India’. Thanks to viral ad campaigns in the mainstream media, light has been shed upon the sorry state of the whole species of these majestic predators. The drastic decrease in the tiger population shocked everyone, at least the ones who are concerned.

Big businesses have invested in this eyeopener movement, gaining some reputation and improving their customer base. Don’t know whether this will be doing any good for the tigers, but surely a lot for the sponsors. As always, hoping that the government will do something to save the tigers from poaching or at least release some made-up statistics after a couple of months, people like me are writing blogs and tweeting and sending SMS to TV channels. Some get on the road and earn some footage on national television.

Now lets talk about the Tigers. Many superlative adjectives are traditionally used to describe them. This one is a white tiger,not from the family under number crisis.

The Royal Bengal Tiger is unique to the Sunderbans of Bengal. So back during British era, when people were brainstorming about the to be national symbols for India, they must have zeroed in on the Tigers. There must have been some Bengali lobbyists in the panel, that is why we also have a Bengali song as national anthem.

But the danger is not only for the Bengal Tigers, poaching has been actively carried out in every forest of India. Welcome to the great Hindi belt, numerous Tiger reserves surrounded by civilian settlements and frequent tourist activity made the Tigers prone to poaching. Now the numbers are alarming. Only a handful of the 1411 tigers alive today are in this region.

Karnataka lost many of its Tigers due to the thriving tourism industry. People come here to stay for a couple of days in cottages tucked inside the living area of tigers, possibly driving the tigers to the edges of forest and making it easier for them to fell prey for poachers.

Tigers are always special for Tamilnadu. The ancient Pandyan kingdom of Madurai region is always associated with the Tigers. Their flag is ‘pulikkodi’ meaning ‘Flag with Tiger’. Their flag carried a Tiger. Tiger was and is a regular in Tamil literature and Tamil movies for comparing the Hero and his bravery to them. And remember the so called rebels of Lanka? They were nowhere now. This should not happen to the real tigers.

These rare animals are facing the threat of extinction. We must act now, that implies to urge the government and officials to do the needed. Otherwise we Indians will be left with no option other than to describe Tigers in past tense.