Royal Bengal Tiger
Tiger is the largest living member of the cat family. It has a graceful built. The
reddish yellow coat with black stripes gives it a royal look. Ventrally it is white.
Its ears are black on the outside and each of them has a prominent white spot on
it.
The scientific name of Indian tiger is 'Panthera tigris'. The origin of the cat family
from what we know today is Siberia. From there, they migrated down south as the
climate became colder. Tigers are found in Siberia, Manchuria and the Asian continent.
In Asia, India and Malaysia are the two prominent countries where tigers live. The
Indian tigers, the Royal Bengal tigers are the most graceful animals found in Sundarban
in Bengal.
In India we had over forty thousand tigers in the beginning of the 20th century.
Today it is very sad to note that the tiger statistics is much lower. The reasons for
tiger becoming an endangered species are uncontrolled felling of trees resulting
in the shrinkage of the habitat of the tiger, decrease of preys, increase of poaching
for its beautiful skin. The treat of extinction forced the government of India to
initiate the 'Project Tiger' on the first of April 1973 when the tiger population
was less than 2000. Initially nine tiger reserves were selected. This number has
now increased.
The tiger lives in varied habitats open jungles, humid evergreen forests and mango
grove swamps. Its diet consists mainly of deer, antelopes, gaurs and wild pigs.
Sometimes it also captures birds, lizards, turtles, fishes, frogs and crabs. Tigers
hunt on their own and usually lead a solitary existence, each in its own territory.
They are endowed with good swimming power but seldom climb trees.
Tigers are rapidly decreasing in the world. In the last millenium, three sub-species
of tigers already lost their existence while five other species are endangered.
The first lot of the three sub-species comprised of panthera tigris virgata, panthera
tigris balica and panthera tigris sondica.
The endangered species are Bengal Tiger(Panthera tigris tigris), Amur Tiger (Panthera
tigris attaica), Chinese Tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis), Indonesian Tiger(Panthera
tigris sumatrae) and Indo-Chinese Tiger(Panthera tigris corbetti). To save these
tigers, a movement called Save Tiger has been working since 1972.
Total number of tigers in India in 1972 was 1800 which has since then increased
to 3500-4000. Efforts of the Government, NGOs and the people have brought about
this change. The Wildlife Conservation Act was passed in 1972. But incidents of
poaching is still heard. We have sixteen project tiger field areas in our country.
They are Corbet National Park, Kanha National Park, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, Indravati National Park, Sarinka
National Park, Melghat Sanctuary, Palamou Tiger Reserve, North Simlipal National
Park, Buxa Sanctuary, Sunderbans National Park, Manas Sanctuary, Namdapha National
Park, Nagarjun Sagar Shvishailam Sanctuary, Bandipur National Park in India.
Breeding of tigers are done very carefully in many zoological gardens. Recently
a cub was born in the calcutta zoo. These newborns are genetically different due
to genetic recombination. This feature is known as genetic variation. It is an important
component for a living being to adopt itself in the nature. This genetic variations
help them to fight against any odds.
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