Friday, October 21, 2011

New Cubs Bring Hope to Tigers

Hope has been brought to a rare species of tigers called Sumatran. Three female and one male tiger cubs have been born in the Oklahoma City Zoo after three years of waiting for there to be cubs. There are less than 300 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. These cubs are bringing hope for the almost existent tigers to come back from "the brink extinction". Three out of nine species of tigers have already gone extinct in the past 70 years. The Amur, Bengal, Malayan, South China, and Sumatran are the six remaining species of tigers still left. All of them on the "endangered or critically endangered list".

They tigers are being lost mostly because of habitat loss or poaching. Tiger bones, eyes, teeth and other parts are used in some Asian countries as medicine for malaria and meningitis. Tiger are also hunted for there skin to be sold by group or individual poachers. Some roads that are built make the tigers territory smaller and prey might be to small for the groups of tigers. The World Wildlife and Wildlife Conservation Society are attempting to get a "top-level" Asian government official to get involved in tiger conservation. Conservation is being helped by individual members of villages who patrol forests to make sure there are no illegal poachers. Also, there are programs in zoos to help increase the tiger population.




Source: Life Science


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