Thank You

Wow ~ it's been one month since the home page has been updated ~ I know it may have frustrated some visitors but I think even if one person went over from this site to the Nat Geo Save the Lion fund page and made a donation - then it was well worth it! And I know some people have actually donated ~ I'd like to thank them all as well as those who sported the little banner on their websites. On a personal note ~ I'd like to thank all of those who visited my cats' blog and sent words of comfort and support following the recent loss of our cat Forest.

I think I've covered most of the wild and domestic cat species and now I can move on to other issues like conservation of wild cats, and care of house cats. There are some big news that I've come across in the past month and will soon discuss them in detail. One of them is the landmark movement of tigers to the Sariska reserve in India. For those who aren't aware ~ Sariska is a wildlife reserve next to Indian capital New Delhi. In the past it used to have dozens of tigers but they were all wiped out by poachers a few years back. Now authorities in India have taken a landmark step to reintroduce a pair of adult tigers in the reserve. They are doing well so far and conservationists around the world are anxiously anticipating the success of this novel experiment. For if this approach of migrating tigers to repopulate new reserves does turn out to be sound, then the implications are manifold. It will certainly be a big boost for the dwindling tiger numbers in India and may also pave a way for future such experiments around the world. I know the couple of hundred Asiatic Lions in Gir Forest of Northwestern India would benefit from having another reserve. The way things stand now - a single environmental or biologic catastrophe could wipe the entire subspecies out. Hundreds of African Lions have died in the past with sporadic epidemics like canine distemper virus etc. So anyways Sariska is a great step forward...but monsoon is fast approaching in India and it is this season of torrential rains when it is most difficult to patrol the forest and poaching is at its peak. To their credit the wildlife officials have increased the number of rangers and stepped up their guard of Sariska. They are also relocating villages that are located next to the jungle in order to eliminate conflict between man and tiger.

So while the above has been a really pleasing development - there is some very disturbing news as well - and this also relates to tigers...remember the Thai temple...where Buddhist monks were keeping a dozen or so tigers ~ feeding them from donations, taking them for walks and letting people pose with these great cats...you must've seen it on National Geographic/Animal Planet/Discovery at some point in time...well it turns out it was all a sham ~ the tigers were mistreated, underfed and grossly abused ~ a lot of donation money is unaccounted for and the overall treatment of the magnificent big cats is totally inhumane. I know it's hard to believe but so is always the case when one's trust is shattered. You can read more here:

http://www.careforthewild.com/news.asp?detail=true&I_ID=578&section=Latest+News

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/7/15/lifefocus/1535960&sec=lifefocus 

I'd also like to point the readers to a wonderful blog that I read daily and where I learned about the above info. It is called Tiger News and is run by a lady quite passionate about the preservation and well being of tigers. You can reach it here: http://savethetigers62.blogspot.com.

So again thank you all for your support and I'll be back to posting regular articles for ailurophiles in the coming week. Btw - for those who link to this site from their blogroll etc - it has moved from its previous url ailurophiles.blogspot.com to www.ofcats.com ~ so you can update the link ~ take care and c ya soon...