The Siberian Tiger is only slightly taller at the shoulder than the agile and ferocious Bengal Tiger. To see either of these wild animals up close sends shivers down your spine. They are magnificent creatures and to call them cats, does not do them justice, as they are wild and instinctual, they see something they want and they go get it at light speed. They may look like larger versions of the domestic house cat, but it is silly to put them in the same boat.

Many of these tigers weigh a good 500 pounds or more, but that does not slow them down one bit. Occasionally, they will eat smaller animals like rabbits and monkeys, but those are just snacks, much like a human might be. They prefer larger animals like Buffalo, Wild Boars and Deer, and will often eat fish, as they like sushi too, just like you. They have been known to eat baby elephants and baby rinos too. If one spots you and you run, the tiger will give chase and have been clocked at speeds in excess of 50 miles per hour. Unfortunately, even with these superior hunting skills the Bengal Tigers are nearly extinct.

Looking at the young two months old cub waiting for his mommy in the cave was really touching as he looked lost, alone with no one to console him just like an orphan, who has no idea where to go, whom to go and how to survive. People involved in saving our tigers are urging to use social media to create awareness among each other. So here are ten steps to stop the dwindling population of tigers in India.

1. Create awareness

Anyone and everyone can help if they put their mind to it. So make posters, fliers, shout it out from the roof tops, spread a word; in other words create awareness about the importance of tigers on the planet. Organise birthday parties with tiger theme, parents can take the children to zoo for more information on tigers.

2. Educate the locals

People living near the forests need to be educated about the importance of tigers in terms of ecosystem. They need to be told that if there will be no tigers there will be no forests as all the grass eaters will devour the forests.

3. Stop poaching and don’t encourage poachers

Sale of tiger skin and other body parts is banned. So if you find somebody hunting tigers, report them to your local police station or even the forest officials. They will take care of the poachers.

4. Support a cause

Join a cause for tigers. You can join save our tigers and support them by blogging, or by making posters, sending fliers among other things. You can also organise a tiger sale and donate the money to the cause.

5. Severe punishment for poachers

Ensure that the poachers are not allowed to go easily. Make sure that they receive severe punishment for their crime.

6. Ban the goods made of tiger skin

Please do not use goods made of tiger skin. Also please don’t use the medicine made out of tiger’s body parts. On an average one wild tiger is killed each day for profit killing.

7. Protect forests

In order to save tigers forests need to be protected. Apparently the species are becoming extinct because of the loss of their natural habitat.

8. Take an eco tour

An eco tour that focuses on tigers can be beneficial in making people understand the importance of tigers. Also the money made out of these tours can help in convincing government that tigers can be profitable.

9. Support accredited zoos and wildlife sanctuaries

You can also support various accredited zoos and wildlife sanctuaries in your area. They are active in research and conservation programmes with some of the zoos involved in captive breeding of tigers

10. Donate money to tiger conservation organisations

You can also donate some amount to tiger conservation organisations who are constantly striving to fund money for their research as well as educational programmes on tigers.

These are few of the ways that you can save the tigers from becoming extinct. There were eight species of tigers on the planet earth. However, three of them are already extinct save the rest five. The three species that are extinct now are Bali tigers, Javan tigers and Caspian tigers.

The tiger is the largest of the cats and is a perfect killing machine with a superior combination of power, cunning and agility. On the other hand, A lion has an appearance to frighten even the mightiest of animals. There have been some real fights between the two kings of the jungle. So, what do the evidences and experts (and common sense) say about who will win a fight between the two, or rather, if there are 100 tiger-lion fights which one will have more victories?

________________________________________________

The image below gives a vivid comparison of apparent and actual size of these felines. The image is self-explanatory. There are some links to video in this post where, when a lion stands near a tiger, you can have a good comparative view that conforms with the image here. The videos and this image clearly explain why a lion looks bigger even though an average Bengal tiger is actually bigger than an average African lion. The tiger being shown here is most probably an IndoChinese one (going by the color and stripes). Bengal/Siberian tigers are even bigger.

Another size comparison image, taken from National Geographic:

This image compares a 6′ man with a lion (without the mane), a Bengal tiger and a Siberian tiger. Even though it is from National Geographic, I’d say it definitely exaggerates the size of the Siberian tiger!

Here are more size comparisons from National Geographic (clock-wise from top-left: Polar Bear, Brown Bear, Black Bear and Grizzly). Notice that, Grizzly bear has been considered as separate from Brown bear and the Grizzly and Black Bear images are actually the same!

If these size comparisons from National Geographic are to be believed, even a Grizzly doesn’t stand a chance against a Siberian tiger, let alone an African lion!

________________________________________________

THE KING OF BEASTS:

Lion is known to be the King of Beasts across most cultures of the world. This is mostly because of a lion’s appearance and partly because of the social structure of a pride and the lion’s role in the pride. A lion does possess a royal look and attitude. Add to that a tremendous roar that can be heard over miles on the Savannah. Also, living in a pride, a lion doesn’t need to hide itself or avoid any other animals including human beings. A lions lives in the open and controls its territory like a true king, sporting a ‘kingly’ mane and heading a pride that feeds him. The Bible of the Christians and the Geeta of the Hindus both mention the lion as the king of the beasts. So it has got accepted as a sign of royalty all over the world from as early as the Roman empire. Have a look at this magnificent lion (Shambala zoo).

Vital Statistics:
[There are a lot of variation in the figures found online. I tried to collect them from reputed instituion and/or govt sources]

• Largest Lion in captivity: 806 lbs (366 kg)
• Largest Lion found in the wild: 702 lbs (318 kg) and 11′ (3.35 m)
• Average size (mode) of African Lion: 410 lbs (186 kg) and 8’10″ (2.7 m)
• ** Lions stand around 1.15m (including mane) at shoulder as opposed to 1m of a tiger **

The King of The Kings:
When you think of a lion, you think of an African lion. The Asiatic ones are somewhat smaller in size and relatively unknown living in the tiger country. There is no significant variation in size among the African lions. In some online forums it is claimed that Ngorongoro Crater lions are the largest sub-specis of lions. But there is no base to that claim.. The Tsavo lions are generally considered more aggressive, but they are naturally maneless.
Choice: African lion (with mane).

Relative advantages over a tiger:

1. Thick protective mane. It also makes a lion look much bigger, heavier and taller than it really is. This is of immediate psychological disadvantage to any animal fighting a lion. It’s downright scary to see a lion coming towards you roaring. A lioness, even if it were of similar size, wouldn’t inspire as much awe. From the fight videos, it does seem that the mane is of huge advantage to the lion. In the only fight-video of a maneless (shaved) lion, the lion seemed too easy to beat by the tiger. The mane is the biggest weapon for a lion – both for defence and for scaring off the opponent.
2. More massively built shoulders. Both the cats have extremely powerful and muscular ‘shoulders’ and forelimbs.
3. Taller structure. This makes the lion more intimidating. Also, this somewhat compensates for the weaker hindquarters.
   Here’s a very good video showcasing lions.

________________________________________________ THE AMBUSH KILLER:

Living largely secretive life and attacking preys using stealth, cunning and agility, a tiger is mostly considered a villain (like Sher Khan in Kipling’s Jungle Book). Moreover, the man-eaters in India have further maligned the image of a tiger. Not much is still known about the lives of the tigers in the wild and hence a lot of the information considered as ‘facts’ about tigers are merely informed guesses. Since the chance of encountering a tiger in the wild is way less than the chance of encountering a wild lion, a lot of data about tigers reflect either only a small population of them, or are based on indirect studies, or both. Also, a tiger’s unwillingness to fight without necessity has often been seen as lack of courage and aggression. Look at these majestic Bengal tigers.

Vital Statistics:
[There are a lot of variation in the figures found online. I tried to collect them from reputed instituion and/or govt sources]

Entering the English language in the late 19th century, the word safari means “long journey” in Swahili. Originally from the Arabic سفرة (safar) meaning a journey  The verb for “to travel” in Swahili is “kusafiri”, the noun for the journey is “safari”. These words are used for any type of journey, e.g. by bus from Nairobi to Mombasa. The person generally attributed to having used the word in English is Sir Richard Francis Burton, the famous explorer.

The Regimental March of the King’s African Rifles was ‘Funga Safari’, literally ‘Halt the March’, or, in other words, stop work for the day.

Funga safari, funga safari. Funga safari, funga safari. Hamari ya nani? Hamari ya nani? Hamari ya Bwana Kapteni, Hamari ya keyaa.

Which is, in English:

Halt the march. Halt the march. On whose orders? On whose orders? On the order of the boss captain, On the order of the KAR.

On Kenya’s independence from Britain, Funga Safari was retained as the Regimental March of the Kenya Rifles, successor to the K.A.R.

Video on the work of the Altai Foundation, which was founded in 2004 to protect Russia’s wilderness areas. It works with its US partner, the Altai Conservancy, to collect scientific data of wilderness areas and supports anti-poaching efforts to protect the last snow leopards.

–

A report showing that Britain is failing to halt the declines of many of its highest-priority wildlife species and habitats, from the red squirrel, the juniper and the common skate to chalk rivers and coastal salt marshes, was “sneaked out” this week by the Government with no publicity, environmental campaign groups said yesterday.

More than twice as many conservation priority species and habitats are declining as are increasing across the UK, the report says, yet to find that study is virtually impossible without special knowledge. It was posted on the website of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the Government’s UK-wide wildlife advisers, on Thursday.

But it is buried deep in the site, there was no press release, and there is no reference to it or link to it on the website’s front page. It is not even on the website of the relevant Government department, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

The report – “The UK Biodiversity Action Plan: highlights from the 2008 reporting round” – was finished more than a year ago, and wildlife campaign groups have accused the previous Labour government of deliberately sitting on it, and the new Conservative-Lib Dem coalition Government of actively seeking to hide it. It concerns the progress – or lack of it – of the 500-plus UK species and habitats which have been the subject of Biodiversity Action Plans, or BAPs, set up since the Convention on Biological Diversity was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

The report shows that 24 per cent of the priority species are declining (88 species in total), as against 11 per cent which are improving. Typical continuing declines, besides red squirrels, plants such as juniper and fish such as the common skate, include the turtle dove, the twinflower and the brindled beauty moth. And 42 per cent of the priority habitats (19 habitats in total, including wildlife-rich upland chalk grassland and upland hay meadows) are in decline, as against 18 per cent which are improving.

“These results are so poor so that it comes as no surprise that they have been hidden away,” Mark Avery, director of conservation for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said. “Can you imagine a report on the state of the nation’s health, or economy, or education being ignored in the way that this report on the state of the nation’s wildlife has been? It is vital that cuts in public spending don’t harm the conservation of wildlife. We need to hear from the new government what measures it will take to reverse the declines.”

Matt Shardlow, director of Buglife, the invertebrate conservation trust, said: “The handling of this report, sat on for almost a year then quietly slipped out without transparent supporting data, suggests the Government is ashamed its recent track record. There is now an urgent need for Government to re-commit to working with the public to save and indeed restore our wildlife.”

Dr Jeremy Biggs, director of the charity Pond Conservation, said the report had been “sneaked out”. He added: “Freshwaters in Britain, and especially England, are in a parlous state: 75 per cent of our rivers and streams break EU directive ecological standards, and 80 per cent of ponds are in poor condition, and have declined in quality over the past 10 years.”

The JNCC said it was merely “hosting” the publication of the report on its website for the secretariat of the standing committee of the UK Biodiversity Partnership, who are civil servants in Defra. A spokesman for Defra said the findings in the report had already been made available, at the 2009 UK Biodiversity Partnership annual conference, and that environmental organisations had been “kept informed” of the development of the “highlights” report.

The news is not all bad: some rare, threatened or even formerly vanished species are now doing well. The once-extinct large blue butterfly has been reintroduced and is flourishing (mainly in Somerset), and once very scarce birds such as the stone curlew and the bittern are rising steadily in numbers. Also, the ladybird spider has been reintroduced into Dorset after a captive-breeding programme.

(source)Posted byGraham Inglisat18:00

View the Original article

The MoU will be signed this week in the Chinese capital Beijing. 

Dr Siddhartha Bajracharya, National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC)
executive officer, said the signing of MoU will help identify the
priority areas of cooperation on issues like biodiversity conservation
and curbing illegal wildlife trade.

Chinese market is highly regarded for trade of wild body parts,
especially tiger. Police had seized huge consignments of red sandalwood
bound to China from India in the past.

“The signing of MoU will enable the authorities of both the countries to
plan and discuss trans-boundary issues on wildlife conservation and
wildlife trade,” said Bajracharya. 

The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) and
Department of Forests (DOF) from Nepal and the Department of
International Cooperation of the State Forestry Administration of China
are the implementing bodies of the agreement.

Minister of Forests and Soil Conservation Deepak Bohara said regular
meetings would be held between the two country’s officials to curb
rampant wildlife parts trade after the signing of the MoU.

The two countries will sign the MoU this week in Chinese capital
Beijing.

http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline

Nauradehi or Noradehi WLS lies in Sagar, Damoh & Narsignhpur Districts in Vindhya Hills with affinity to Narmada Valley dry deciduous forest. The forest are Southern tropical dry deciduous mix type. The approach to the sanctuary is from Jabalpur, Sagar and Damoh in MP. The Jabalpur Sagar Highway goes through the WLS and is a great source of disturbance to wildlife.
Nauradehi was declared a wildlife sanctuary in the year 1977 and encompasses an are of 1187 sq.km. It is among one of the largest sanctuaries in India. In spite of its large area the preserve is in a state of decline. The mammalian density is very low and limited to few un-scarred areas. The sanctuary exists as fragmented patches of forest with density varying considerably. The sanctuary needs considerably research and study of its habitats, flora, fauna and avi-fauna.

Villages – Relocation

None of the villages have been shifted so far albeit the relocation process has been initiated since a number of years. The movement in the forest is not restricted and tree felling for firewood is openly carried out everywhere. The expanding villages and urbanization of life style sounds a death knell for already beleaguered forests. The expansion of villages have resulted in conversion of large tracts of forests in to agriculture fields. The biotic pressure on the preserve is severe with demand for wood and extensive live stock grazing. Live stock grazing in the sanctuary is unchecked.

Animals – Tigers

Nauradehi and surrounding forests were once high density tiger heavens. One could come across tigers on all approach roads to Sagar, Damoh and Narsinghpur. The forest that constitute Noradehi WLS were the best tiger habitats in those days as late as 1960s. Sadly this is no more.

Tigers are not seen here anymore albeit there are unconfirmed reports of tiger and leopard sightings here and there. The forest have suffered habitat degradation in the past and most of the trees I could see are young. Along with habitat degradation other contributory factors for the local extinction of tigers and leopards are poaching, decrease in prey base and population explosion in the large number of villages that are within the WLS.

The keystone specie presently is the Indian wolf which on my subsequent visit appears to be nowhere abundant. With neglect and depredation the sanctuary faces, it is apparent that all major mammals are loosing ground.  The reserve is home to Chinkara and Black Buck the latter confined to forest area in Damoh district. Nilgais are conspicuous by their relative abundance, spotted deer and sambar deer can be seen occasionally in day time. The sanctuary is home to fresh water crocodiles and smooth otters seen on the banks of the river especially at crocodile point.  Many species of small mammals, reptiles and insect are waiting to be discovered. The sanctuary is home to sloth bear as well.

Birds

I could checklist more than eighty resident species here and am waiting to come across spotted grey creeper. Raptors to appear to be abundant. Nauradehi is one of the few pockets where white backed vulture survives and breeds. King vulture and Egyptian vulture are often seen and the habitat is suggestive of the presence of  long billed vulture as well.  I saw a juvenile at Cheola Lake and an adult in flight.  The region around Cheola Lake is best for wildlife safaris and birding.  The water body is home to interesting wetland birds and one can see  resident whistling teal, little grebe, painted storks, lesser adjutant storks, gray heron and many more.

Tourism

The WLS has tremendous scope for wildlife watching and birding tours in India. Like all preserves there is a criss cross of  motor able jungle roads in the sanctuary. There is no proper regulation at the gate since it is a highway connecting Sagar and Jabalpur. A guide can be arranged at Mohali forest rest house. It would be advisable to take assistance from the DFO who sits at Sagar.

Tourism is not at all regulated and very few tourists visit the sanctuary. The place has great tourism potential as the eco region and keystone mammalian species seen are much different from Kanha, Bandhavgarh National Park and Pench tiger reserves in MP.

If proper conservation measures are put in place tourism will increase and perhaps the tigers and leopards will return.

For more information on wildlife safaris and birding at Noradehi please contact The Penthouse. Privately owned hotel accommodation The Penthouse in Jabalpur organizes package tours for birding and safaris at Noradehi.

Winters upto March is the best time to be at this WLS in Madhya Pradesh in India.  Rani Durgavati Wildlife Sanctuary is about fifty km from Noradehi.

Posted byupty123
Source:  http://tigersafari.blogspot.com/2010/05/lost-tigers-of-nauradehi.html

I grew up in natural environment in locality at a distance from Jabalpur in green suburbs. Narmada Road was then sparsely populated with greenery the hall mark and forest patches still intact in the surroundings. Urbanization had not taken place and few houses and couple of villages habituated the area. Jabalpur is situated in Central India or Madhya Pradesh.
My first sight of the Indian tiger was a dead one. It was shot by shikaris from Mumbai whence hunting was open. The license fee was perhaps  not more than hundred rupees for a tiger and less for other unfortunate mammals. The hunting blocks were all around Jabalpur.  The male tiger was shot at Nauradehi Wild Life Preserve in block called Amahpani. It was a piteous site, the animal was skinned right in front of us. Parts of its body including fat were eagerly picked up by locals for supposedly medicinal properties. I do not remember what happened to its claws. 
My first sighting of a leopard was a dead one. The leopard was shot few km away from our house by a local shikari who lived nearby. The Mumbai hunting party then fetched another leopard cub, shot by their Swiss guests on machaan …mercilessly butchered with random bullet shots all over the body. Another vermin dead….
I once accompanied this hunting party whence we came across a doe at night in Mandla forest division. We were spared from the fright of gunfire and extreme guilt of killing an innocent animal. The shikari accompanying us on jeep was dead asleep, after an orgy of binge drinking and gluttony he was in no position to shoot. This was my first encounter with a spotted deer in the wild. The shikari slept with head leaning on the gun barrel…who cared.     
Then scores of animal arrived, sambar, chital, hare and what not…Mercifully all that organized hunting stopped whence legislation came into the effect.          
The neighborhood teemed with wild animals all around Jabalpur District also in Katni, Mandla and Sihora to name a few. All that is gone, some patches still hold small life and spotted deer which are entirely at mercy of humans. But in spite of the law, many influential people continued to shoot and the numbers began to decrease. Hunting by tribals and local hunters continued unabated as it happens often now. 
Subsequently large tract of forest became devoid of tigers, leopards and Indian wildlife. Jabalpur and its surrounding districts suffered heavy loss of wildlife and forest belts. In small numbers, deer and leopards still survive (perhaps tigers as well) but precariously since hunters still loom large. Most of the deer species have died out here but animals like wild boar still survive. These are the prime targets of illegal hunters and poachers now.
The diminutive beat guard is helpless figure over shadowed by Goonda and Political Raj. He is a witness to poaching and wood logging, the latter on daily basis. Who stops all this frankly.. I do not know…Pardon my ignorance. Posted byupty123at10:09 AM

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