Weekly Feline News

Here are last week's cat-related news..

First tigers. Controversy is surrounding the recent death of a Royal Bengal Tiger in Sattari wildlife sanctuary in Goa, India. The tiger is thought to have been shot by poachers, according to photographic evidence obtained by a wildlife activist. However, the local administration is trying to hush up the matter and deny the occurrence of a poaching incident in the forest. The reason for that may be simple. Goa has not reported the presence of any tiger in the Sattari forest in the past. There are numerous multimillion dollar mining ventures going on in the periphery of the forest, run by politicians. If the local government decides to acknowledge the presence of a resident tiger in its forest, the national tiger conservation authority in India will immediately change the status of Sattari to a protected tiger reserve. This will put the whole mining enterprise there in jeopardy. A dead tiger will not cost the administration any votes or political favors, but the halting of mining operations in the forest might do so! More on this here and here.

Incidents like the above have resulted in the issuance of a new directive by the chief tiger conservation body in India, the NTCA. All dead tigers are now to undergo a postmortem in the presence of a NTCA representative. This will help to ascertain the cause of death in many cases where the circumstances surrounding the animal's demise are ambiguous. The NTCA has also set up a panel to draft a set of guidelines for the proposed relocation of tigers across forests in India. The need was felt for this when after the relocation of a tigress to Panna tiger reserve, to repopulate it with the big cats, it was discovered that there was no male tiger in the reserve to breed with the female. Fortunately, a male tiger is now being translocated to Panna. More on the above here, here and here.

While browsing through the site that hosts the second of the three links above, I came across a couple of interesting articles about the maneating tigers that were terrorizing northern India a couple of months ago. You can find them here and here.

There's good news for Siberian Tigers. South Korea has resumed a breeding project for the big cats, the largest wild felines extant. The move has come after repeated failures to breed the Amur Tigers there in the past. Let's hope that the project is successful this time around and aids the conservation of the endangered cats. To read more about this and see the picture of the beautiful male tiger that has been donated by China for this purpose, go here.

Good news for Jaguars too. For the first time, a jaguar has been photographed in Barro Colorado Island, an important wildlife research site in Panama. The camera trap picture is a significant milestone for the researchers tracking the big cats in that area. For even though the image shows a single migratory jaguar traversing the island, it indicates the presence of the elusive big cats in the tropical forest and their ability to move across fragmented island habitats to survive as a species in that particular region. More here.

For lions too, this has been a good week. This is owing to the long-awaited arrest of a kingpin in a gang of poachers who were responsible for the deaths of several Asiatic Lions in India in 2007. The arrested poacher was the last remaining member of the poaching gang that was still eluding the authorities. With his arrest, a degree of closure has been brought to the tragic series of poaching events couple of years ago when six lions were killed by this gang. Let's hope that similar incidents are not repeated in Gir. More on this on the Asiatic Lions blog.

So positive news mostly, for this week. The only 'negative' one is from UK where government is contemplating a law that would make it easier to keep exotic pets in private captivity. The new law will ease the restrictions on owners of big cats and reptiles, thus encouraging a wrong trend towards private ownership of dangerous pets, who belong in the wild. The harmful impact of having such animals in private captivity has been well demonstrated across the world, both to the animals who often suffer from abuse once they grow up, and their owners who are frequently mauled by their 'pets'. Here is one such account from Abu Dhabi. And here is more on the proposed legislation.

And, before you leave, go here for a quick laugh. I won't be able to blog next week owing to some professional engagements, but will be back a fortnight later. Take care, all :)