Tigers, Anyone? (Excellent Read/Video on Sunderbans)

KABAARY

The article may not be perfect in your opinion, but remember: "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Questiuon of perfection does not arise in this case as the article was far from perfect....and perfect can never be the enemy of the good if everyone strives for it. Certainly, considering the dire straits the tigers are in, a "perfect" conservation effort is reqired.

I guess I'm just going to have to settle for articles like the one in the New Yorker.

Read better articles then...if nothing else, google and you shall find...read this, for example...

http://www.thehindu.com/fline/fl2218...9002810100.htm

PeakXV

Wouldn't it be boring if the reader was subjected to the 'conservation rant' in every endangered wildlife article they read. Might appease some specialized activists but could draw more yawns than sympathy from the majority of seasoned readers - I'm sure.

An article need not have a particular spin or angle in order to be well written or well researched or well timed - does it? It also doesn't have to include quotes or interviews from every ubiquitous bigmouth of the field to be deemed 'official' or 'worthy' ... I don't believe.

Yes - every now and then it just might be refreshing to sit down and read a foreign journalist's unbiased safari experience mixed with first-hand accounts of villagers & wildlife professionals who don't write books on, don't give speeches on, or don't profit off the tiger trade in any way .... but actually live with & co-exist with those bloody big pussy cats!!! ..... Puuuuurfect!

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We shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started ...and know the place for the first time.
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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

KABAARY

Some of you seem to have been touched to the raw by my opinion of the article...

Yes, a rant can be boring as I am experiencing right now....so let me go and read a foreign journalist's report on any Indian experience - will probably help me to understand my country better.

PeakXV

Your 'opinion' is honest & from the heart - no doubt

..... but to suggest that one needs to consult with somebody's personally approved list of inhouse 'experts' in order for an article to be 'real' or deemed authentic or even worthy of print is rather myopic .... and this train of thought, in the long run, could sell yourself or those that might be influenced by you - a tad short!

dzibead

I don't see anything in the New Yorker article that's inconsistent with the one you've linked to, and I see nothing in the latter article that in any way diminishes the value of the former. So ... what was your point again?

tacita

no, kabaary, that's where you're wrong. i respect your right to have an opinion, of course, but i can't respect your opinion of the article because: (1) i don't believe you actually read it; (2) if you did, you apparently didn't understand it; and (3) it just wasn't very constructive for you to be dismissive and ethnocentric about the subject matter when i, as the OP, simply sought to pass along a good read. if you want to debate the "issue", why not start a thread to do so? you can have dueling expert opinions or something! your...er..."critique" here might carry a bit more weight if you pointed out even one fact about which the article was wrong or specified the precise nature of its alleged superficiality.

because you apparently missed these things, let me explain that the article wasn't just about tigers and the sunderbans. the article isn't superficial; rather, your reading of it was superficial (assuming, of course, that you read it in its entirety). what the article offers is typical of a new yorker piece: compelling narrative and structure, dexteritous use of the english language, well-known scrupulous fact-checking, and an understated, elegant style. it's literary journalism--very much the opposite of the Q & A session you posted about tiger "facts." it's easy to criticize things you don't understand--exactly what you are accusing we "foreigners" of doing.

yes, please do! read it before you debunk it! why dismiss it because it's written by a foreigner? i don't dismiss articles about US issues written by non-americans. they present a different perspective that i value. and, again, this is a narrative piece, not a technical piece. in my excitement after reading this "good read", which i was surprised and delighted to find in my favorite periodical, i sought, very simply, to share my enjoyment. i regret you felt you had to take the wind out of my little sail.

yes, it very well might. sometimes we can get a better understanding of our own countries when we see them through the perspective of a visitor. but i must correct you, this article wasn't about an "indian experience", it was about an american journalist's experience, observations, and fact-gathering from local experts, all presented to the fair reader using colorful, poignant and sensitive narrative techniques--which just happens to have been in india.

why not give it a shot or start a thread in which you can debate the "tiger issue"? inasmuch as you clearly recognize you've offended or annoyed other members here with your superficial reading of the article, why not just leave it at that? you've made your point.

to the other posters: was anyone else absolutely chilled by one man's recounted experience of "hugging" the tiger when he felt he was about to die, and his likening the feel to a "sponge"? and then the understated way that the author referred to the tiger dragging his companion away by the throat. the sense of cold, inscrutable and unequivocal ferocity is palpable in that almost off-handedly casual following sentence. <shivers!>

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capt_mahajan

Umm, haven't been following this thread, so just a comment on foreign journalists or authors writing about India-

Some of the most accurate and well written books about India, IMHO, are by foreigners. Also some of the most inaccurate and self serving.

Ditto about Indian authors.

Ergo, at least I tend to judge a book or an article on it's content, and nothing else.

Unless the author is pretty - that does raise the standard of literary stuff a bit.

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dzibead

I infer that you are being sarcastic here ... so, will you be dropping Sandip Roy a line, telling him he'd better stop writing about the U.S. for his American audience, since he couldn't possibly have anything of value to tell us Yanks?

tacita

thanks for passing these on, kmalik! i'd missed them!

the trend here--and good news, as demonstrated by these articles--seems to be the greater interest that the rest of the world is taking in indian tigers.

i litigate endangered species cases, among other environmental issues, and the policy issues for ES's are especially gnarly. i hope the populations of these terrifyingly beautiful creatures can be enhanced through strict enforcement of existing laws and sound science. now i really want to go to sunderbans, which i reluctantly had to scratch from my trip last year.

jvdv

Hi all, and thank's for the linked articles.

A couple of thoughts from me (written in poor english):

I think Kabaary is missing something essentiell here. Perhaps his linked article about conservation is better in a conservation point of view but is the "new yorker" the best window for that kind of article? Is the avarage reader a ecological conservation type of guy (or woman)? Would they read more than the first sentences?

Isn't it better that (gripping a number out of the blue) 100.000 read the "original" story, with hopefully a few of them getting interrested and involved, than not reading the conservation article at all, if published in the new yorker?

stellap

I agree entirely, except perhaps for the last bit

The same could also be said of work on any country, or indeed perhaps subject on the planet - at times objectivity throws great light on the subject at hand, at others subjectivity is exactly what is needed to enlighten the reader.

kmalik

All this talk of Indian vs. foreign sources aside, the fact of poaching and dwindling populations of Indian tigers has been verified and otherwise indicated by Indian sources as well. And, in fact I have read positive efforts and experiences in tiger conservation in India. So, to be honest, my own initial reaction to the BBC story I linked earlier was also none too positive (something along 'doesn't the European parliament have enough to do?'), but the most impactful and the saddest thing to see was the second picture in the BBC story - that of tens of tiger skins hanging (for sale?). As such, I - for one - would like to see this thread come back to the tiger conservation discussion.

And, the tiger skin and body parts trade is international in nature. And, it seems India could well do with voices, resource and cooperation to counter it. Otherwise, "the tiger episode on earth is over" - as some Indian in the article linked by tacita is quoted as saying.

kmalik

Another link on tiger conservation - although not all will agree with the approach...

fsg

Tacita

Yes the story does make a good read. The video is awful.

The Sunderbans are under threat from Gobal Warming, population increase, as are many locations in the world.

Tigers are dwindling at an alarming rate in India, the Indians have not a clue how many tigers are in Sunderban. It s a vast area.

The villagers eke out a living farming, raising animals, and by net dredging for prawn seed, this further erodes the banks. A prawn seed sells for 30pi, this activity goes on all day from the boats in the river at the incoming tide to the ladies in saries at the edge.

Attempts to introduce wild deer to the area has failed miserably, so the tigers are forced to raid the communities for food, as they are starving.

Parts of the reserve are totally fenced off so the tigers cannot escape to swim across to villages.

This I read whilst in Sunderban

url=[http://www.telegraphindia.com/108022...y_8938795.jsp] telegraph23.02.08[/url]

url=[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...th/2008/02/19/
eatiger119.xml]19/0208 Tigress[/url]

Moreover W Bengal tourism operates lots of boats into the Sunderban with bars , blaring music, and presumably profit at the end of it for themselves.

No wonder the tiger goes into the interior where there is not so much food.

Yes poachers have been encouraged to turn to gamekeepers to preserve the tiger, but I dont know what a tiger would fetch on the open market but it would be ton loads of prawn seed.

NDTV ,India, has a drive on to' Save the Tiger' I hope India wakes up to its heritage


Last autumns cyclone devastated the Bangladeshi side of Sunderban, no doubt with loss of habitat to tigers, luckily India was not averesly affected.


Hope?

KABAARY

My word (freudian slip ?) ! Really sticking the knife into me…personal attacks alternating between the supercilious and the virulent (especially post #21 – no surprise it’s the OP).

Bring out some more – I don’t mind (seriously, believe you me !) if you genuinely grieve for the tigers.

Off track perhaps, but a story to tell :

SP of Sawai Madhopur (within which Ranthambore falls) gets a call–poachers have been caught! I accompany him (my mistake)…

Interrogation of the poachers happened and the story unfolded : Poachers steal into the forest area in the middle of the night and set traps (big ones like the bear traps) – tiger gets trapped – struggles for hours on end to free himself (masculine gender deliberately used as the males are targeted – why is another story) – but he can’t and the struggle leaves him shrieking in pain and exhausts him and he slowly bleeds to near death. Poachers reappear in the wee hours of the morning – the tiger is not yet dead…this is what the poacher tells the cops in true Hindi film style (partial translation into English by me) : “Pulled out the gun aur seedhe ganpatti pe goli maraa”. Thereafter, in fifteen minutes flat (as claimed), the tiger was skinned and claws and lucrative body parts hacked/praised out.

I saw a majestic beast – in the form of grisly unwanted parts, pulp and blood. “How the mighty have fallen”, I thought in dramatic style and puked...

It’s an awful feeling and experience guys…..if you genuinely feel the articles such as the one I commented about really could make a difference, I retract everything I have said in my posts above.

And if it makes you feel happier, this has made me cry….for the tigers (how’s that for melodrama ?).