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Saturday, October 5, 2024

Caturday

Did you know? There are no wild tigers in Africa. In fact, according to Live Science, the cat family members who evolved into our stripey buds, booked outta Africa for Asia about two million years ago. They’ve never returned.
Sadly, due to human activity like hunting, the global tiger population has dropped by 97% in the last 100 years. Now, the remaining tigers call only the following 13 countries home: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Russia, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Over 70% of the global wild tiger population lives in India alone.
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Land development for roads, logging, and human settlements has led to around 96% of the tiger’s natural range being lost in the past 100 years. That combined with high levels of poaching has led to a sharp decline in tiger populations around the world. Tigers are now globally listed as “endangered.”  (source)
Wildlife Conservation Society figures show that there are only around 3,000 tigers left in the wild. We did that—us. People.

You know who else is endangered as fuck (by us!)? Amur leopards, that’s who. There’s only around 100 left. They live in eastern Russia and northern China.
The Iberian lynx is an apex predator but there are only 1,111 left in the wild. Why? Humans and our total lack of respect for others. We steal and build on their homelands. We hunt them. WHY?! And we hit them with our stupid cars and trucks.

The flat-headed cat (yes, that’s really its name) of Southeast Asia is about the size of a housecat. It’s found in Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo and southern Thailand.
This cat is endangered due to its habitat being converted to agricultural lands (including oil palm plantations), pollution and hunting. (source)
Wild cheetahs can go from zero to 60 miles an hour in only three seconds. They can’t outrun humans destruct-o tendencies though.

Did you know? Cheetahs generally hunt alone but male siblings will sometimes form a hunting party. These groups are called a coalition. Sounds like they were labeled by some corporate human resources suits, eh?

Snow Leopards? They’re classed as vulnerable—a small step up from endangered. Why are these beauties vulnerable? Humans. Poaching, our theft of the leopard’s habitat, declines in natural prey (due to human predation) and other assorted stupid human shit.

Christ almighty, as a species, we suck.

My fabulous house panther, Cake.

2 comments:

  1. This reminded me of this letter published in an Indian newspaper. Since India has most of the tigers, it's interesting to consider how Indian people feel about them.

    In general, people in tropical countries have quite a different view than those in the US and Europe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Re: that clipping—if India cares so much about women why do they not see marital rape as a crime (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80r38yeempo), why aren't baby girls valued as much as boy babies (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-13264301), why is there so much violence against women (https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/08/26/g-s1-18366/rape-murder-doctor-india-sexual-violence-protests)?

      Some rando sees equivalency between human caused demise of tigers and the completely different extinction of dinosaurs—he sounds like a trump glorifying MAGAt, incel.

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