Interview: Kelly Martin

Last week, we had the amazing opportunity to speak with Kelly Martin, the School and Outreach Coordinator with the Kansas City Zoo! She graciously obliged to answer a few questions for us, telling us a little bit about herself, some interesting information about tigers, some information about endangered tigers, and what's being done to help them: 

Q. So, Miss Martin, how did you get your position working with the zoo?

A. I have a bachelor’s degree in biology/psychology and interned at the St. Louis Zoo.  After graduating college I got an Education Instructor position and worked my way up to Coordinator.

Q. What is your favorite animal that you have at the zoo?

A. I like the Black-footed Cats. They are in the Africa section of the Zoo near the Lions.

Q. What is your favorite kind of tiger?

A. My favorite kind of tiger is the Amur, which is native to far eastern Russia. They are also the largest cats in the world!

Q. What is the usual temperament for a tiger? Are they happy and lazy? Fierce and protective?

A. Tigers tend to be a little more high energy than other large cats like lions.

Q. Do tigers mate for life? What advantages or disadvantages does this have?

A. Nope, but they are solitary animals.  Males tend to have larger territories where several females may live and he can subsequently breed with them.

Q.Is it true that tigers aren’t afraid of people and will attack them like any other prey?

A. I wouldn’t say that tigers aren’t afraid of people.  However they are predators and will treat us like prey if they are hungry.  We are typically pretty easy prey to catch, especially if we are by ourselves.

Q. Are tigers colorblind like dogs or other cats? Is that a hindrance to tigers trying to hunt and distinguish animals camouflaged in the environment?

A. Tigers are not colorblind, they can see some color but not as many colors as we can.  No, tigers are ambush predators and will wait for their prey to get close enough.

Q. Can tigers be domesticated and kept as pets?  If so, is this a good idea?

A. No!  Tigers are wild animals, and have very unpredictable behavior.  Unfortunately, many people in the U.S. keep them as pets.  There are more tigers kept in private facilities (not zoos) in Texas than there are in the wild.  Many of these cats do not get the nutrition or space they need and subsequently escape, attack their owners, or get very sick.

Q. I’ve heard that a tiger has special nerves in its teeth. Is this true? If so, what do they do and how?

A. They do have nerves in their teeth, but there is nothing special about them.  They do, however, have a Jacobson organ in the roof of their mouth.  This organ takes in pheromones which gives the tiger a lot of information about another tiger.

 

Q. If I am ever cornered by a tiger, what can I do to scare it off? If not, can I do anything to maximize my chances for survival?

 

A. I would suggest not getting cornered by a tiger in the first place.  If the tiger has chosen you as prey, you are as good as done.

Q. Is it true that many tiger species are endangered today?

A. Yes, each of the 6 remaining subspecies of tiger is listed as endangered by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

Q. Which tiger subspecies are endangered?  How many tigers are left in the wild, and where would their natural habitat(s) be?

A. The Bengal, Indochinese, Malayan, Sumatran, Siberian, and South China tigers are all endangered. Today, there are fewer than 4,000 tigers remain. These tigers live across much of Asia, and are native to 13 different countries. They have the ability to adapt to a wide range of environments and can be found in many environments from the warm, humid tropics to the cold, northern taiga forests! For more information, visit http://www.mnzoo.org/tigerSSP/conserResearch.html

Q. What is endangering these tigers, and what would happen to the tigers if nothing is done to stop it?

A. Poaching and loss of habitat through deforestation are the two main causes for the tigers’ endangerment. Furthermore, due to the dwindling number of tigers, inbreeding is leading to more and more genetic problems with the remaining animals, which reduces the tiger population even further. If nothing is done to stop these serious problems, tigers will eventually become extinct.

Q. What efforts are being made by wildlife conservations to protect these tigers from endangerment or extinction? 

A. The Tiger Conservation Campaign is raising awareness about wild tigers and funding for their conservation. In particular, they seek to help the Amur, Malayan, and Sumatran tigers, each of which is highly endangered in the wild.

Q. Do you think that wildlife conservations will be able to eventually save these species?

 

A. It will take more than just wildlife conservation to save tigers, this includes all of us.

Again, we would like to acknowledge and thank Miss Martin for her time and cooperation to help us with our project!

Relevent Article: A Cry for the Tiger

     Dawn, and mist holds the forest. Only a short stretch of red dirt track can be seen. Suddenly—emerging from the red-gold haze of dust and misted light—a tigress ambles into view. First she stops to rub her right-side whiskers against a roadside tree. Then she crosses the road and rubs her left-side whiskers. Then she turns to regard us with a look of infinite and bored indifference.


     And then, as if relenting, she reaches up the tree to claw the bark, turning her profile to us, and with it the full impact of her tigerness—the improbable, the gorgeous, the iconographic and visibly powerful flanks.


     The tiger. Panthera tigris, largest of all the big cats, to which even biological terminology defers with awed expressions like "apex predator," "charismatic megafauna," "umbrella species." One of the most formidable carnivores on the planet, and yet, amber-coated and patterned with black flames, one of the most beautiful of creatures.

     Consider the tiger, how he is formed. With claws up to four inches long and retractable, like a domestic cat's, and carnassial teeth that shatter bone. While able to achieve bursts above 35 miles an hour, the tiger is built for strength, not sustained speed. Short, powerful legs propel his trademark lethal lunge and fabled leaps. Recently, a tiger was captured on video jumping—flying—from flat ground to 13 feet in the air to attack a ranger riding an elephant. The eye of the tiger is backlit by a membrane that reflects light through the retina, the secret of his famous night vision and glowing night eyes. The roar of the tiger—Aaaaauuuunnnn!—can carry more than a mile.

     For weeks I had been traveling through some of the best tiger habitat in Asia, from remote forests to tropical woodlands and, on a previous trip, to mangrove swamps—but never before had I seen a tiger. Partly this was because of the animal's legendarily secretive nature. The tiger is powerful enough to kill and drag prey five times its weight, yet it can move through high grass, forest, and even water in unnerving silence. The common refrain of those who have witnessed—or survived—an attack is that the tiger "came from nowhere."

     But the other reason for the dearth of sightings is that the ideal tiger landscapes have very few tigers. The tiger has been a threatened species for most of my lifetime, and its rareness has come to be regarded matter-of-factly, as an intrinsic, defining attribute, like its dramatic coloring. The complacent view that the tiger will continue to be "rare" or "threatened" into the foreseeable future is no longer tenable. In the early 21st century, tigers in the wild face the black abyss of annihilation. "This is about making decisions as if we're in an emergency room," says Tom Kaplan, co-founder of Panthera, an organization dedicated to big cats. "This is it."

     The tiger's enemies are well-known: Loss of habitat exacerbated by exploding human populations, poverty—which induces poaching of prey animals—and looming over all, the dark threat of the brutal Chinese black market for tiger parts. Less acknowledged are botched conservation strategies that for decades have failed the tiger. The tiger population, dispersed among Asia's 13 tiger countries, is estimated at fewer than 4,000 animals, though many conservationists believe there are hundreds less than that. To put this number in perspective: Global alarm for the species was first sounded in 1969, and early in the '80s it was estimated that some 8,000 tigers remained in the wild. So decades of vociferously expressed concern for tigers—not to mention millions of dollars donated by well-meaning individuals—has achieved the demise of perhaps half of the already imperiled population.

     My determination to see a wild tiger in my lifetime brought me to Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, one of 40 in India. My first tiger was spotted within ten minutes, and in a four-day excursion I gloried in nine sightings, including a repeat appearance of that first tiger, a three-year-old female. In high grass she stalked with such patient, focused, deliberateness—each paw raised in slow motion and placed so very gently down—that it was possible to see her stealth.

     It didn't matter that in most cases my experience was shared with a queue of other vehicles. Seeing tigers in the wild is now mostly a tourist experience—the Bengal tiger is not only India's national animal but also one of the country's largest draws. Elsewhere, my tiger-seeking travels had been made on rough roads, by river, forest trails, and even elephant, but in Ranthambore I departed at dawn in a jeep that awaited me outside the Oberoi lodge. In the jeep were a ranger, a guide, and most necessary in a place where tiger viewing is a blood sport, an expert driver, who barged ruthlessly to the head of the queue, ensuring me of that first, mystical tiger sighting.

     India is home to some 50 percent of the world's wild tigers. The 2010 census reported a maximum estimate of 1,909 in the country—up 20 percent from the previous estimate. While welcome news, most authorities regard the new figure as reflecting better census methods rather than growth of the tiger population: Tiger counts, in India or elsewhere, are still at best only estimates.

     A modest 41 of these carefully enumerated tigers were living in Ranthambore. Conducting me through the park one morning, conservator Raghuvir Singh Shekhawat pointed out the variety of wildlife that flourishes where the tiger is protected—langur monkeys, spotted deer, wild boars, collared Scops-owls, kingfishers, and parakeets. And he offered a ground-level glimpse of tiger conservation, stopping his jeep beside a canvas tent in a clearing. "Would you like to see the hard life the field officers lead?" he asked, lifting a tent flap to reveal three slender cots. "Here is their kitchen," he said, gesturing to a pile of canned food and bowls. "In 30 years of service, at least five years is under the tent." The rangers put in up to ten miles a day on early morning foot patrol, taking plaster casts of any pugmarks they encounter and making notes of evidence of prey animals.

     Ranthambore's history reflects in miniature the history of the tiger in India. Formerly the private hunting estate of the maharajas of Jaipur, its original 109-square-mile core reserve is ringed by a containing wall, within which undulating forest skirts romantic maharaja-era ruins. One evening I met with Fateh Singh Rathore, the assistant field director of Ranthambore after it became one of India's first Project Tiger reserves in 1973. Tiger hunting was legal in India until the early 1970s, and as a young man, in the days when Ranthambore had been a hunting estate, he had worked as a game warden. "To shoot a tiger, maybe a hundred rupees," he recalled—a couple of dollars.

     Always fragile, tiger populations have fluctuated in recent years. Between 2002 and 2004, poaching of some 20 tigers in Ranthambore essentially halved its population. This was better than the fate of the nearby 300-square-mile Sariska Tiger Reserve, found to have no tigers at all: Every single one of its tigers had been killed by professional gangs—and in a reserve just 70 miles from India's capital, New Delhi.

     Ranthambore is a hub for a contentious new conservation strategy—the relocation of "surplus" tigers to places like Sariska. Only days before, at a wildlife conference in New Delhi, I had heard heated criticism and questions from India's many outspoken watchdog organizations challenging the strategy: What constitutes a surplus tiger? Had the issues in Sariska and elsewhere been solved before importing new tigers? What research had been conducted regarding potential trauma to both the transported tiger and the home population from which it was taken? And what effect might such trauma have on breeding?

     So far, relocation has met with uneven success. Three tigers transported to Sariska were found to be siblings—undesirable for breeding. More eloquent than any of the valid scientific concerns was a story unfolding in the national media: The determined trek toward his home 250 miles away by a lone male removed from Pench Tiger Reserve to restock Panna National Park.

     The trek of this solitary tiger highlights another crisis. Many reserves exist as islands of fragile habitat in a vast sea of humanity, yet tigers can range over a hundred miles, seeking prey, mates, and territory. An unwelcome revelation of the new census is that nearly a third of India's tigers live outside tiger reserves, a situation that is dangerous for both human and animal. Prey and tigers can only disperse if there are recognized corridors of land between protected areas to allow unmolested passage. No less critical, such passages serve as genetic corridors, essential to the long-term survival of the species.

     It is a heady experience to see an idealistic map of Asia's tiger landscapes linked by arteries of these not-yet-existent corridors. A spiderweb of green tendrils weaves tantalizingly among core populations to form a network that encompasses breathtaking extremes of habitat—Himalayan foothills, jungle, swamp, deciduous forest, grasslands—that pay tribute to the tiger's adaptability. Close scrutiny breaks the spell. The places that have actual tigers—here-and-now, flesh-and-blood tigers—as opposed to hypothetical tigers, are represented by a scattering of mustard-colored blobs. The master plan represents a visionary undertaking, but is it feasible? Over the next decade, infrastructure projects—the kind of development that often destroys habitat—are projected to average some $750 billion a year in Asia.

     "I've never met a head of state who says, 'Look, we're a poor country, if it comes between tigers and people, you just have to write off tigers,'" said Alan Rabinowitz, a renowned authority on tigers and the CEO of Panthera. "The governments don't want to lose their most majestic animal. They consider it part of what makes their country what it is, part of the cultural heritage. They won't sacrifice a lot to save it, but if they can see a way to save it, they will usually do it."

     Seeing a way has proved difficult amid the plethora of tiger strategies, programs, and initiatives jostling for attention—and funding. The U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Save the Tiger Fund (which has now partnered with Panthera), Global Tiger Patrol, Saving Wild Tigers, All for Tigers!, WWF, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Panthera, International Year of the Tiger Foundation, the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative—the list is impressive. "Five to six million dollars is spent a year for tigers, from all philanthropic organizations," said Mahendra Shrestha, former director of the Save the Tiger Fund, which gave grants totaling more than $17 million between 1995 and 2009. "In many instances the NGOs and tiger-range governments just fight each other."

     Long-term conservation must focus on all aspects of a tiger landscape: core breeding populations, inviolate sanctuaries, wildlife corridors, and the surrounding human communities. In an ideal world, all would be funded; as it is, different agencies adopt different strategies for different components. With time running out, tough priorities must be set. "Since the 1990s, there has been what I would sum up as mission drift," said Ullas Karanth of the WCS, who is one of the world's most respected tiger biologists. The drift toward tiger conservation activities like eco-development and social programs, which possibly have greater fund-raising appeal than antipoaching patrols, siphons funds and energy from the single most vital task: safeguarding core breeding populations of tigers. "If these are lost," Karanth said, "you will have tiger landscapes with no tigers."

     Decades of experience and failures have yielded a conservation strategy that, according to Rabinowitz, "allows any site or landscape to increase its tigers if followed correctly." Central to this protocol are relentless, systematic, boots-on-the-ground patrolling and monitoring of both tiger and prey in those sites assessed as harboring realistically defensible core tiger populations. Under the protocol, a population of a mere half dozen breeding females can rebound. Such, at least, is the hope for the largest single protected tiger reserve on Earth, a remote valley in northern Myanmar.





Article by Caroline Alexander



Found on nationalgeographic.com


http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/tigers/alexander-text

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Tigers are the largest and perhaps most majestic cat family in the world. Male tigers average 10 feet in length and weigh up to 500 pounds. Females average 8 feet in length and weigh up to 300 pounds. Tigers that live in cold regions are paler in color and larger in size; their fur is long and thick. In warmer climates, tigers are smaller in size and more colorful; they have shorter, thinner fur. These beautiful and graceful animals tend to have an almost mythical connotation with them in many cultures close to the tigers' natural habitats. They consider tiger parts to many properties, both for healing and poisons.

Unfortunately, humans have hunted these animals mercilessly; these regal felines only number about 5,000 to 7,000 total, with just over 3,000 remaining in the wild. In the early 1900's, there were about 100,000 of these imperious animals. During this time, there were about 9 subspecies of tigers. Today, only about 5 or 6 of those subspecies remain. 

However, this decrease is not only due to poaching, but also to pernicious deforestation. The removal of trees from the tigers' natural habitat herds the tigers into smaller and smaller areas. This gives the tigers less room to hunt for food and raise their young, and new males may often kill unprotected cubs (tigers are very territorial). More tigers are forced to prey upon the same amount of animals within a given area. 

http://www.allaboutwildlife.com/endangered-tigers-facts

http://www.tigersincrisis.com

http://www.edu.pe.ca/southernkings/tiger.htm