It's Kumara's birthday today (she turns 11) so I wanted to share a few photos of this lovely tiger.

Kumara, an Amur tigress (Panthera tigris altaica) at Jungle Cat World Zoo has a nice relaxing grooming session. The papillae (pointy bits) on a tigers tongue not only help it to rasp meat off the bones of what they're eating, it also acts as a brush to dislodge dirt and old fur, or clean a wound with their anti-septic saliva. The tongue is a great tool of the tiger's trade.

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Tigers are the largest of the big cats and are exclusively found in Asia from India to Vietnam, from Indonesia to the Russian Far East. The tiger can be divided into 9 subspecies: 4 are currently critically endangered and 3 are already extinct. Though estimations of tiger populations only a few years ago was 5,500-6,000, today populations are likely closer to 3,200 and are still declining. Dramatic declines of the tiger in India, thought to host the majority of the world's tigers, have fallen to less than 1,411. Overall, the past decade has seen a 40% reduction in tiger habitat, which now represents a mere 7% of its historic range. Poaching is a significant problem throughout the tiger's range, the demand for its body parts in traditional medicines, tonics, and exotic dishes driving a lucrative trade that is wiping out entire populations. Long-term threats include habitat fragmentation and prey depletion, which is accelerating the tiger's demise and subsequently reducing the long-term genetic viability of many populations.

If you want to help, the best for you to do is to educate yourself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger), never buy products made from tigers or endangered species (http://freeland.org), and tell others. Contact me for more information.