Tiger Summit aims to save big cats

[struggle4progress]

By IRINA TITOVA and JIM HEINTZ
The Associated Press
Friday, November 19, 2010; 12:37 PM

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Global wildlife experts and political leaders from 13 countries on Sunday open a meeting aimed at finalizing complex and costly plans to revive the world's tiger population, which has plummeted so sharply that it may be near the point of no return.

Although the fierce and wily tigers may be the epitome of power in their natural habitat, they have seemed nearly helpless against man. The World Wildlife Fund and other experts say only about 3,200 of the big cats remain in the wild, a severe plunge from an estimated 100,000 a century ago.

Their forest habitat is being eaten up by timber operations and construction, while poachers stalk the dwindling tiger populations, killing them for their skins and for body parts prized in Chinese traditional medicine. The wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC said in a report this month that more than 1,000 parts of tigers slain by poachers across Asia had been seized in the past decade.

"The Tiger Summit is our last best chance to ensure a future for these animals in the wild," Ginette Hemley, a WWF vice president, said in a statement Thursday ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111903582.html

[GliderGuider]

1. What's the big deal? They're just tigers. It's not like you can eat them or anything...

:sarcasm:

[damntexdem]

2. But I thought tigers didn't get along well enough with each other to hold a summit.

;-)

[NNadir]

3. Um, you mean we shouldn't, um, put a...

http://www.pictures-of-cats.org/pointless-biofuels-are-killing-the-sumatran-tiger.html">Tiger in our tanks?

Um, um, um, but biofuels are "renewable" and therefore are beyond criticism. I mean, what's more important, tigers or http://www.globalchange.umd.edu/energytrends/germany/6/">speeding down the Autobahn feeling smug while being stupid.