A female Sumatran tigress (Panthera tigris sumatrae) looks at you from behind enclosure glass at the Australia Zoo. Zoo tigers will, more often than not, ignore visitors and for good reason; zoo visitors are by and large incredibly irritating, trying to bother the animals in order to get them to move or interact with them. It's quite sad. However, sometimes you have special moments like this where a tiger looks across the divide by its own accord and looks into you with striking eyes. What reason the tiger had to suddenly cast a serene gaze your way only she knows.

“Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings ― Evan Esar

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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://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/tigers/), never buy products made from tigers or endangered species (http://www.wildaid.org), and tell others. Contact me for more information.

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