Shocking Fact - More Tigers in American Backyards than in the Wild

I read this in the paper earlier...

One of the world’s largest populations of tigers exists not in the wild—but in captivity in the United States. With an estimated 5,000 tigers, the U.S. captive tiger population exceeds the approximately 3,200 tigers in the wild.

Across the Unites States laws vary with each state from no restrictions, to simply requiring registration, to the banning in same ownership of the keeping of them as pets. This means only six per cent of the US tiger population resides in zoos and other facilities accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. In central Texas a 49-year-old women was found trying to sell tiger cubs outside her local Wall-Mart.

97% of tigers' habitats have disappeared

www.independent.co.uk...

www.worldwildlife.org...

a reply to: blupblup


I think this is a pretty shocking and saddening fact.
We've decimated their natural environment and there are now more in private hands and "backyards" than in the wild.
I don't have a lot to say as the fact speaks for itself really.

a reply to: blupblup

Wait...I can own a tiger in my backyard.....and get it at Walmart......that will keep everyone off my lawn

On a serious note. That is an amazing statistic to read. It is also a little sad

a reply to: blupblup

Where are the world leaders, the vaunted New World Order and TPTB, who are working every day to expand and restore the natural land for the animals, birds, insects, plants, and all the other lifeforms who've lived where humans have now torn down and built upon? Until the NWO folks and the rest get on that issue and stay on it, they have no hope of ever winning over the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of thinking people.

a reply to: Aleister
In the case of the Siberian tiger it is not a case of habitat erosion but of heavy poaching. I never understood how someone gets their jollies just by blasting things they have no intention of consuming.

The more I hear about that country the more astonished I am at the way some people live their lives.

3 percent of the population using 25 percent of planets resources, international genocide and this.......to name but a few.

Pfhhhhhh.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: Aleister
In the case of the Siberian tiger it is not a case of habitat erosion but of heavy poaching. I never understood how someone gets their jollies just by blasting things they have no intention of consuming.

Absolutely.... the article says

When tiger ownership and breeding aren’t monitored, captive tigers become easy targets for black market sales, and those sales end up threatening wild populations too. The illegal trade in products derived from captive tigers stimulates demand, especially for tigers in the wild. The greater the demand, the more wild tigers will be poached.

People not only poaching for sport.... but for erectile dysfunction and hair loss and all manner of other crap.
Damn the Chinese...

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: Aleister
In the case of the Siberian tiger it is not a case of habitat erosion but of heavy poaching. I never understood how someone gets their jollies just by blasting things they have no intention of consuming.

well, you probably have an IQ triple that of the average guy killing a chipmunk with a handgun (I saw that accidently while channel surfing about two weeks ago). Idiots in the woods don't bode well for the critters who actually live there.

That is so sad, we are terrible.

It just goes to show, there isn't much difference between a millionaire with a tiger, or an average Joe with a tiger, neither truly have compassion or common sense.
They are called wild animals for a reason. They need to be in the wild. Protected lands, with hunters hunting the poachers.

a reply to: blupblup
In addition to the high demand for magical tiger bones - there's also this:

More than 10 tigers have been killed as "visual feasts" in China to entertain officials and rich business people, state media reported.

Police in the port city of Zhanjiang, in the southern province of Guangdong, seized a freshly slaughtered tiger and multiple tiger products in a raid this month, said the Nanfang Daily, the mouthpiece of the provincial Communist Party.

Local officials and prominent businesspeople gathered to watch the tigers being killed as "eye-openers" to show off their social stature, it said. Video footage of a killing two years ago showed the tiger, kept in an iron cage, having an electrified iron mass prodded into its mouth with a wooden stick and passing out after being electrocuted for more than 10 seconds, the paper said.

What can you say after you read something like that? They're probably doomed

originally posted by: Aleister
well, you probably have an IQ triple that of the average guy...

You vastly over estimated but I will mail you $50 anyway.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: Aleister
In the case of the Siberian tiger it is not a case of habitat erosion but of heavy poaching. I never understood how someone gets their jollies just by blasting things they have no intention of consuming.

That's because tigers taste horrible.

a reply to: blupblup

Okay. I'm getting angry and depressed. Time to log out.

Great find, perspective. F&S&

a reply to: Spiramirabilis


Yeah they are... but as long as some people keep fighting for them, like the WWF, tigertrust - et al. Then there is still hope.
Slim hope is still hope.

originally posted by: blupblup
People not only poaching for sport.... but for erectile dysfunction and hair loss and all manner of other crap.
Damn the Chinese...

My disdainful comment applies to despicable actions like these as well. I honestly would like to set them loose in the woods and poach them.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus


My disdainful comment applies to despicable actions like these as well. I honestly would like to set them loose in the woods and poach them.

Yep.... We'll let anyone who uses bones or testicles or fur as some sort of remedy, into the wild, one by one and say "if you can take the bits of the Tiger you need, by hand - bare hands, no weapons - then you're welcome to them"

It will be a very sad day when we tell our children "this is what a tiger used to look like".

a reply to: blupblup

I wonder how many Americans have planned for roaming tigers when the SHTF?

originally posted by: Kandinsky
I wonder how many Americans have planned for roaming tigers when the SHTF?

I did. I can run faster than my neighbor.

This is just appalling but sadly not surprising.