You can now read my article on tiger endangerment online at www.sapnamagazine.com. Wildlife conservationists agree that tiger endangerment is a critical issue. Mainstream media intermittently picks up on problems such as these (for example, the April 13, 2009 cover of TIME Magazine features a Sumatran tiger).My Sapna Magazine article features interviews that I conducted via email with some of the top experts in tiger conservation, including Dr. Ullas Karanth. In 2007, Dr. Karanth was awarded the Getty Award for Conservation Leadership -- an honor that has been given to the likes of Jane Goodall. Also featured in my article are Dr. Ron Tilson, Chairman and Director of the Tiger Foundation, and Dr. Mahendra Shrestha, Director of the Save the Tiger Fund, among others.
My article was published in 2007; the online version features a brief 2009 update. I will be working on a more comprehensive update this summer.
I first stumbled upon (and was first disturbed by) the notion of a human-induced age of extinction in Scott Weidensaul's book The Ghost with Trembling Wings. The recent TIME Magazine feature falls in step with this theory, saying that we are creating "a new age of extinction."From TIME.com:
"There have been five extinction waves in the planet's history — including the Permian extinction 250 million years ago, when an estimated 70% of all terrestrial animals and 96% of all marine creatures vanished, and, most recently, the Cretaceous event 65 million years ago, which ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Though scientists have directly assessed the viability of fewer than 3% of the world's described species, the sample polling of animal populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the planet's sixth great extinction wave. And this time the cause isn't an errant asteroid or megavolcanoes. It's us."
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