Too Little Too Late to Save India's Tigers

India is going to open eight new sanctuaries in the next five years to protect its tiger species, especially its Royal Bengal Tiger. But the population just keeps falling and I'm afraid it's just too late to stop the inevitable.

Although tiger hunting is illegal worldwide, people in impoverished parts of India poach as a means of livelihood, thus the country has earned the ire of animal welfare activists worldwide for failing to stop tiger poaching.

The problem is the demand for tiger parts. Unless you cage these animals in a veritable fort with highly paid armed guards, they are vulnerable. They are worth more dead than alive (unless they are being bred for the market of course...kind of like factory farming.) They are so valuable that people will find a way to kill them and sell them for the money. And the more that are killed, the smaller the supply. And with no decrease in demand, the price keeps going up and up. It's all a vicious economic cycle that won't end until the last tiger is "harvested" or penned up in a barn.

Sorry to be a downer....

Photo by wbeem.