In The Vanishing Newspaper, Philip Meyer says the last newspaper will be printed, sold, (hopefully) read and then crumpled and thrown into the dustbin sometime in the first quarter of the year of the lord 2043. In other words, even if this dire prognosis turns out to be true, paper tigers will roam the urban jungles for another 35 years.
Last night, the tiger conservationist Valmik Thapar made an astounding claim vis-a-vis the latest tiger census which shows that the number of tigers in the country has fallen to 1,411 from 3,642 in the last five years. He told Karan Thapar that at this rate the Indian tiger will vanish in the next 5—yes, five—years, but for a couple of pockets.
Will real tigers meet their end before paper tigers?
Photograph: Sharath Rangaswamy
Also read: In Nagarahole, tigers are like city buses…
our country does not deserve the marvel called TIGER. if it were to be in US or australia they would have done anything to save it.
it was horrifying to see the video of people beating a pregnent tiger which had strayed out from forest near sunderbans. india was exposed to the world.
it is good to hear that tiger conservation effort in BHADRA SANCTUARY and NAGARHOLE is on the right path.
national animal is no less than national flag .
huli ,chirate nodi khushi padutta idda makkalu naale LALLU , MULAYAM nodi santosha padabeku ashte.
Spot on Dr!
It was a good sight to see the tigress jumping back to freedom yesterday morning. But as you said, it was a sad sight to see the helpless tigress perched atop a palm tree. The people (all insane) torched the tree, but we are lucky to have one more tiger walking free in the wild.
The Tribal Bill is another detrimental Bill against the forest and its denizens. Those who have fought for implementation for this Bill have done precious little to the tiger, the water security and the tribals themselves. Those who want to have facilities, should come out of forests and not expect urban infrastructre in the forests. By distributing forest amongst the ‘tribes’, we are expediting the dangers of water scarcity.
The new Enivornment Impact Analysis is another nail in the coffin for the conservation efforts. Decades of conservation has been undone with these two Bills.
Indira Gandhi’s great decisions on Wildlife has allowed us some animals in the wild. But the recent Govts are causing great damage to the ecology of the country.
Perhaps Churmuri has unwittingly used the word “paper” tiger. For, a newspaper, if merely a paper tiger, is already dead! Or maybe it was a Freudian slip —as we know, newspapers are no longer what they were.
Also, the tiger of the forests can still be saved. There is hope. Can we really say the same of newspapers?
Indians by and large do not have pride in their heritage and country. As the learned doctor rightly pointed out, in any other country, these animals would have flourished and multiplied many times over.
Come to think of it, even in this day high profile celebrities like salmaan khan,pataudi and sanjay dutt go on hunting spree and are not punished for this offence.
my heart is with arun on this one.
what starts at bandipura and goes all all the way upto south maharashtra is the most precious thing we as a people will ever receive. just in the last year they have discovered 6+3 new species in that area. yes right, in the year 2008 a full 250 years after they started modern catalogue-ing of bio-mass they are still finding new species in our backyard. the big L has to be preserved.
prof carvalho’s haro-oti ofcourse is not a mythology. who knows what else hides there?
most of last month i was down. used that time to catch up with PCT’s works. to be brutally honest, i am hooked and have gone totally crazy in the head. can’t think of anything else but the geography of the place. and i have spread the fever to my family. my 4 year old nephew cant get enough of the bees the oti and charmaDi. and i have already shown him maps, p-number of pics and videos from that place.
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naah!!! entire packs of wolves and buffaloes have been wiped off the maps. everywhere there is a dichotomy. we have a trichotomy anthropology, sociology and biology. yaavd yeshT tooka, heng toogodu?