ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[peter]

THE MEANING OF BIG CATS

a - The ultimate hunter

Cats are perhaps the ultimate terrestrial hunters. They will make a living anywhere given half a chance. The reason is design and the attitude needed to use it to perfection. Most domestic cats would easily survive when they would be forced to do so. We most certainly would not. Animals don't need us to survive. There's no question we need them.

Thousands of years ago, cats ruled the world for a long time. The attitude one would expect to go with it is still there, but most adapted when humans took over. All wild cats are adaptors, always ready to sneak in and join the party. Lions and tigers, I think, are a bit different in that they kept something that was there many thousands of years ago. Some would say it's an attitude typical for rulers, but I would go for something very close to what we call awareness. Supreme awareness.  

b - Lions

In lions, it's still very visible. Captive lions in particular seem to live in another dimension. A dimension that has no humans. They just don't care about us. Or anything else, for that matter. To them, we could be just another species sharing their world. Maybe they see us as potential competitors and maybe they see us as a potential source of food. I don't know, but I do know many captive lions do not like humans. Many keepers had bad experiences. I have reliable reports of incidents you wouldn't want to know about. Lions won't kill you directly when they get to you. They will make you regret the mistake you made first.    

The dimension in which lions live compares to a culture. As an outsider, you are not accepted. Only a lion is. The only exceptions I know of are (some) trainers and those who raised cubs to adulthood. At times, the unwillingness to communicate with humans is interpreted as a result of a lack of intelligence, but those who know wild lions would get to a very different conclusion. There's no doubt that they are intelligent. Maybe the unwillingness to communicate in captive lions is a result of culture and maybe it's their way to say they do not agree with the situation they face every bloody day for the rest of their life.     

c - Tigers

In captive tigers, awareness is visible, but 'tigerishness' often is not. My guess is it partly is a result of their solitary way of life. Solitary animals need to communicate. Lions can afford to shoot first and ask questions later, but tigers can't. No communication is not done, so they communicate. With every creature they see, humans included.

But maybe they do not communicate after all. Not in the way we think they do, I mean. They will figure you out. When you think they enjoy your company, they might have made up their mind. About the opportunity that will come sooner or later. The so-called lack of 'tigerishness', in my opinion, is more superficial than anything else. Very much so, I'd say. The moment you step into the cage, you enter their world and they will tell you in no uncertain way things have now changed. Not in the way lions or bears do, but they will tell you.

d - Monsters of God

Wild tigers and lions still are sitting on top of the world. It's their world and they know. Both are exceedingly intelligent and know things have changed. Humans now rule, but not in the way they did. We lack the abilities and the awareness they have and they know. Our strength is in numbers. They will make way for us, but we shouldn't overdo it. When we do, they will act and reverse the situation. They are wild animals and will never change.   

Wild big cats, as David Quamman wrote, are what we need. We need monsters of God. Not because we cherish fear, but because we know things might spiral out of control the moment they disappear. To me, big cats are not monsters. They are the ultimate result of evolution. They have just about everything I could think of and yet lack the things we often see in quite many humans. It's most certainly not a result of a lack of ability. When we think of big cats, we think of tooth and claw. It is, however, something different.

Big cats have power. So much so, they are capable to bring down even the largest herbivores and break their neck. They also have something that can be seen as an overdrive of aggressiveness. I saw it a few times and will not forget it. When we discuss tigers and bears or tigers and wild boars or elephants, we bring in weight, size and weapons. The main assett of a big cat, however, is the overdrive mentioned. It's a mental thing difficult to describe. 

e - Awareness 

When I see a wild big cat, I see wild country and all things we had only a century ago or so. The moment we lose it, it will never return. That's the moment the countdown will accelerate. In the last decades, we have witnessed a few things that can be seen as a prelude. It getting worse every year. Many think that nature will recover when it gets the chance to do so, but my take is it will go real fast once a critical threshold has been crossed. The reason is the extremes get more pronounced. There are interesting studies of rat societies. A collapse usually is announced with a neglect of child care and education. Than it's the turn of the gate keepers. Once they have disappeared, things go down real fast.

I don't think humans will succumb to internal strive. When they go down, it most likely will be a result of a collapse of research and logistics. Just like in a real war. We only need one virus able to adapt and a few years of no progress. No progress could be a result of cut-backs or big corporations deliberately benefiting from disease. It could also be a result of the decision to refrain from action in order to up the demand just one more month. Maybe someone decides a deadly virus is needed to win a war, but a criminal decision in order to make a few more dollars seems more likely. This, after all, is the ultimate result of the system we embraced. Once the internal check, the State, is demolished or removed, anything is possible.  

A weapon only has an effect when it is not used or when it is used with intention. Big predators show us how it should be done, but they had a very long time to get to the experience needed. And what do we see? Even at their zenith, they were far from invincible. Every big cat has to work hard for his money and any mistake can be the last. The reason is his potential victims also know about evolution. Evolution without balance is an experiment gone wrong, not evolution. A bad experiment will result in failure, meaning it will not survive. What we see now is not a failure, because it's still here.

A tiger, like all predators, is not a mindless serial killer. For me, a tiger, if anything, is about timing, balance and rightiousness. Guess why that is. Three concepts completely unknown to-, but deeply engrained in all mammals. All but one: the would-be predator who forgot he fell out of a tree while trying to get to a shiny object needed to impress the others. 

f - Porc

When you don't agree, don't hold it against me. Below is the one who told me. It's the tiger I sometimes see in my dreams. He's from Russia and likes hunting wild boars on steep hills. He's very good at it.

For some reason, I'm getting more and more interested in porc these days. Porc a la poivre (French), porc a la Indonesia (curry) and porc a la Chabarowsk (pickles). When I told the tiger about it, he said he always goes for porc a la right now, adding you never have a match when you need one:

*This image is copyright of its original author

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