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

[Greatearth]

BorneanTiger 
I am not chinese. Also, China has 52 different ethnic people. What you are referring to is han chinese. Most other groups are living in poor life and they are not responsible of poaching problem.


Biologists/conservationists can't just go to other countries in Asia or Africa, and  study animals because they wanted to study about tigers or other animals..  They must approve by government in that country first. BAscially, knowing people working on animals in that countries help a lot. Nepal is easy from what I heard, but Southeast Asia is really really difficult and government is corrupt from what I heard. And Indonesia is one of the worst. I worked with professor and curiator in museum trying to find new species in the Sumatra island and countries in middle east. They told me many amazing stories there. They aren't even letting them to take specimen samples that collect easily if you aren't muslim. Some people are even staring and behaving rude at them if you aren't muslim. And many random stories that I am not even going to write here. However, this is more likely behavior of individuals. Not entire group.

Let's get into the problem. One professor I know, he is one of the most renowned herpetologist in the world. He discovered more than 100 new reptile/amphibian species in Central America, South America, and western Africa. He always informing students about human population growth caused so much problems. When he lived in the mid-1900s, everyone talked about rising human population will cause problem. Now, no one even speak about this problem. He saw wild jaguars several times when he lived in Guatemala during the 1960s, which is lucky since seeing wild jaguars in Central America is very difficult. He said seeing wild animals that are endangered today like harpy eagle and tapir were extremely easy in the mid-1900s. However, all of the places that he used to seeing these animals were changed to urban area and agriculture. Why? Because central america has one of the highest human population growth, especially guatemala has the highest population next to mexico.

I won't speak about religion deeply since you seemed to be muslim from the middle east.  I know birth control like abortion is against in islam because of it is against with god or something. That's the same in catholic as well.
Look what happened in Philiipine and Egypt. Philippine is deep catholic nation. So people were let's do this. That was main leading cause of cutting forest in their countries since human population is expanding and that country is also very poor. I won't even speak about egypt, because even government can't control about birth control after people start attacking politicans with throwing stone.
A real prboelm of countries like Iran, Israel (not muslim country), Egypt, ...etc are due to high human population growth.  Tbh, one reason of israel is keep smashing palestine is due to water problem they have. Water problem is one of the worse problem that iran has. Egypt wil have the same problem in future in desert.

I spoke with one person working on the Arabian leopard conservation in Israel. His or her answer was that they won't survive in Israel anymore. There is not enough habitat for good populations to survive. Why? Because of rising human population and having problems like water/agriculture in small arid desert area. Conflicts with other middle eastern countries is even extra.

I know many people in here in USA and Europe. I met many immigrants from middle east/north africa and hispanic. Having 3~6 kids are general for them even if they can't afford their living. Many of them are ignorant since their education level is poor and religion. If they want to keep believe their religions, then fine. But don't move to Europe, USA, or other parts of the world and cause problems like increasing human numbers since I hear a lot of stories about it from my European friends..

This will become the same problem in Africa future. Many Africans are not receiving education and many of them are very religious. Africa also has very high human population growth. Sahel countries like Chad are having big problem with this right now.
India and Bangladesh have big problem with rising human population growth since gap/education between high and poor classes are very high. 
Education is factor, but many of those countries are poor and not receiving education. From my life experience, less educated people/women generally having more kids than educated ones.

Human population growth means we need more space, agriculture, and resource. That evantually causing problems like prey depletion, deforestration, and tiger vs human. That's what happened to the Javan tigers in Java island and Malayan tigers in Singapore island. Probably the same for Bali tigers lived in small Bali island. Caspian tigers in Central Asia. It was probably the same for tigers lived in arid areas. For example, tigers used to live good population in west side of the Aral sea until the mid-1900s. Then they were gone after people poisoned boar for agriculture along with Soviet started using river water to raise cotton. Also, many of the places in Kazakhstan was desert and arid areas besides Siberia (northern place), mountain ranges, Aral sea, Amu Darya river, and Syr Darya river.

From my belief, the only reason Siberian tigers survived in the Russian Far East were due to this problem. The Korean Peninsula already had big problem with rising human population along with prey depletion and deforestation. Manchuria was even worse since chinese eat tigers even though it was better situation than Korea. Russian Far East had low human density, even these days. However, tigers were almost extinct in the early or mid-1900s. Also, they are still having problems with low prey density since people over hunted their preys. However, they are living in immense Asia continent. Their habitat or range map isn't restricted by islands. Tigers can have a lot of territories or they can go everywhere. Northeast Asia isn't even arid place. That's one reason of how Siberian tigers survived unlike Javan tigers and Bali tigers.

I tried to speak this problem with many respected tiger biologists. However, the only person who really interact about this problem seriously was Dr. Kerley. Government also don't like to hearing this idea. More human population means increasing economy. Decreasing population also leading problem like aging problems going on in japan, Korea, and Europe (I am sure Peter knows a lot of this problem since he lives in Netherland). Governments trying to find way to people to having kids. However, education is very high in Korea and Europe. Many people don't want to have kids. That is why china changed one kid policy law to have two children since they are starting to face this problem. However, education is high in china and many people don't want to have kids unlike their parents generations. That's what I heard from chinese students. I think this is why many biologists are not really speaking about this problem. Pissing off corrupted governments are not wise idea. They can just deport biologists/conservationists to never allow them to study animals in their countries in Asia or Africa. Rangers/wildlife photographers well speak about this problems since it won't effect any of them.
That is just the sad world we are living in. Reply