Tiger Habitat Shrinks 40% In Ten Years Worldwide - Reuters

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON - Tigers have 40 percent less habitat than they did a decade ago, due to intense poaching and the rise of an Asian middle class that puts pressure on the big cats and their environment, wildlife experts said on Thursday.

"Wild tigers and their habitats are in danger because they're suffering from international crime, economic exploitation and environmental depredation," said John Seidensticker, a scientist at the US National Zoo and chair of the Save The Tiger Fund Council, a conservation group. "We must make live tigers worth more than dead tigers, and landscapes with tigers worth more than landscapes that are missing this most beautiful cat," Seidensticker said at a news conference held next to a zoo enclosure, where a Sumatran tiger breakfasted under a tree.

Tigers live in just 7 percent of their historic range, which once included large areas from the shores of the Black Sea to the Korean peninsula.

The biggest tiger landscapes now are in the Russian Far East and northeastern China and along the Nepal-India border, according to a report released by the World Wildlife Fund, the Save the Tiger Fund and the Wildlife Conservation Society. The report was billed as the most comprehensive scientific study of tiger habitat.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37353/story.htm

[Teaser]

1. Good.

Tigers are dangerous.


Less Tigers = Less Danger.

It's obvious.

[Pooka Fey]

2. Humans are the most dangerous and destructive species on earth

I don't find it at all obvious that tigers make the world IN GENERAL a more dangerous place in which to live. Perhaps a hapless hunter or villager has found themselves on the wrong end of a tiger's claws at one time or another, but those isolated incidents cannot be generalized to state that "Tigers are Dangerous (and therefore worthy of erasure from the earth)".

I have overwhelming evidence however that humans make the world IN GENERAL a more dangerous place to live - and if that warrants the punishment of extinction, then we should start the killing right here at home while the earth still has the ghost of a prayer of recovery from it's centuries-long siege and occupation.

Tigers and all other predators live in balance with their environment, thus they don't strip-mine their territory for prey and other resources without regard for all other species, or over breed until there is no more food and water resources to support their population. The only species of predators that behaves in this fashion are the humans. Thus we humans really have more in common with a virus, a cancer, or a fungus who reproduces unconsciously until it overwhelms and kills its host. Too bad for the tigers and all other living organisms.

Less Humans = Less Cars, Less A/C's, Less Electronic Doo-Dads and thus less Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere

Less Humans = Less Global Warming and Climate Breakdown

Less Humans = Less Drought thus More Water for all species

Less Humans = Less Topsoil Depletion thus More Arable land

Less Humans = Less Depleted Oceans thus More Fish

Less Humans = Less Mass Extinctions and Less Biodiversity Collapse

Less Humans = Less Oil Depletion thus less Oil Wars resulting in Depleted Uranium in occupied territories for generations causing grotesque genetic anomalies and destroying the productivity of the land

Less Humans = Less Religious Fanaticism thus Less Crazed Sociopaths Running Around Killing Others and Making Every Rational Person Miserable

What IS OBVIOUS to me is this: Less Humans = Less Danger

To the E&E forum. Let's reflect for a minute on how much time and effort it can take to counter one 4 word facile, puerile statement. Then multiply that by a factor of infinity. Is it worth it? Maybe not in this case. :-)

On edit: Of course, it may just be that Teaser forgot to include the :sarcasm: emoticon

[Teaser]

3. I don't bother with sarcasm flags

when I think it's obvious