Every few years, some company starts a [selfish] ad campaign to save the tiger, and everyone follows along. The latest is Aircel, who is busy counting down to the last tiger as if it were New Year’s night. There are some 1400 odd tigers alive they say, and the numbers are rapidly decreasing.
I obviously have a problem with this.
Let me start by saying I’m not against tigers. I think they should be protected, and allowed to regenerate their population. I’m not against killing anything—except bloodsucking mosquitos and maybe our three dogs—so tigers are safe. In fact, I’ve always wanted a Tiger as a pet cat; where even an extremely large house cat would do. But, I have a problem with this largely fake sympathy toward Tigers.
Tigers and other carnivores are ecologically redundant. Their purpose in nature was to make sure the herbivores don’t eat up all of the grass, thereby leaving the earth barren; ending life. Now, humans are very well capable of doing that job—trigger happy Salman is just waiting to shoot down some black buck—so where does the Tiger fit in? The Tiger is only for the saving. The vanishing of the glamorous cat puts us all in extreme guilt for our better lives, so we want to do something about it. Nature doesn’t give a shit about Tigers. Nature doesn’t need tigers. Existence is not depending on whether or not tigers roam this planet. What are we saving them for. Our children? Aside from knowing that there are tigers in the wild, when was the last time you ever saw one? I’m not counting zoos here. And if you did make a Safari trip, how do you feel about yourself, disturbing their lives with your fucking cameras and littering?
Say something against Tigers, and it won’t be a second before someone yells out, “what a fucking self-important self-riteous selfish ass-tard”. Which is what I am. All individuals are selfish. It starts at the individual level, them family, local society, country, and finally, the species. With animals on the other hand it’s much simpler. In many cases it’s a direct jump from individual to species. Sometimes not even species. My point is we’re all selfish, so it’s not wrong to think of our species first.
Let me get the trivial stuff out of the way. We have no reason to kill tigers. Poaching is just plain wrong, and people who own tiger skin should be hanged at the local beat show. But that’s not why Tigers are disappearing—rather, they’re not proliferating. It’s because of drying watering holes, lack of prey, receding forest cover, and things like that which lead to the Tiger crossing paths with a human. Should we do something about it? What can we do about it? Not much. No matter how many speeches and documentaries we watch, we continue to use motor vehicles, we continue to eat chicken and beef, we continue to live in concrete houses, and continue to breed. As long as there’s development, there will be a climb. The climb may show a steady decline in increase, but it’s increasing nonetheless. Selfish species for sure, but evolution taught us that. It’s nature’s mistake really. It made man so powerful and smart, that he has taken over the planet. I’d like to blame this God fellow, but I’ll leave him alone for a change. But then, the age old philosophical question is asked again, “what are we here for?”. We don’t know. Intelligence, collective consciousness, and documented history could be far greater evolutionary achievements on nature’s part, than something as minor as a four legged carnivore.
So what do we do then? Just stand by and watch? No way. Do something. My parents are one of India’s greatest environmentalists (please don’t tell them I said that), and have played a crucial role in saving Goa from destruction. Truth. My brother is one of the most knowledgeable natural scientists I know, and has been educating people about the harmlessness of snakes for several years now (don’t tell that asswipe I said this either). I have reared the most awesome cat in the world. He’s been bred to be soft, sissy, good looking, and a good internet marketeer apparently. Do something for sure, something selfless that will prolong the life of this planet as we know it.
The problem with this “Save the Tiger” bullshit, is that it makes you feel like you’re doing something by not doing anything. As long as you don’t kill any tigers, and maybe have your kid draw some shitty paintings of happy tigers, you’ve done your job. It’s as fake as using a fleshlight to jerk yourself off. The real problems are swept under the rug, because (a), they’re not glamorous enough to sell a story to the public, and (b), it requires major effort and lifestyle changes on part of the public. The Ganges has turned into one filthy flow of sewage, the mountains are being hacked by people who can afford to pay bribes; we’re not worried about frogs killed for their legs, or indigenous primitive trees being hacked to make way for teak and other desirable wood, or that forest mushrooms hardly grow these days. Our priority should be to create a sustainable environment for the natural ecosystem to thrive. We need cleaner sources of energy, better laws and administration at from our government, and we need to understand that the last link of the chain is not nearly as important as the first. Make that happen, and tigers will most certainly take care of themselves.
A rare red and white tiger, spotted in its natural habitat.
The thought alone that we are saving Tigers only for humanity, to take some kind of advantage of them is presumptuous and stupid. What makes you think that all life on earth has to benefit humans? Nature doesn’t give a shit about humans, nature doesn’t need humans. It’s quite the opposite, since humans are actively reducing the richness of species, nature would probably be better off without humans.
And don’t tell me this is just natural selection, which has always been a part of evolution. If you call the extinction of species through human behavior part of evolution, then humans are probably the worst product evolution has ever created. And who are we to judge what is worth living, and what is not? Think 50 million years ahead, when humans might very well be extinguished themselves. How can you tell that carnivores wouldn’t play a significant role in the future development of life? You can’t. Maybe they will, maybe not. But do you really think that we have the right to screw them all over, just because we think we’re more important then they are?
‘Intelligence, collective consciousness, and documented history could be far greater evolutionary achievements on nature’s part, than something as minor as a four legged carnivore’ You know what the key word in this sentence is? It’s ‘could’. Because we have no fucking idea where life is going. My guess would be that in the far ahead future there’ll be some four legged carnivores. And what about humans? I wouldn’t count on it.
Fuck the nature! Fuck the tiger!!! The humans rullees!!!!!!
Good Insights milind. I am sick of this campaign: it is lame.
The ads just say “1400 tigers left”…and plain simply do not offer further explanation…not even on their website. so what are we supposed to do?
@Teucher: What exactly is ‘nature’? Is it the plants and trees, and bees, and frogs, and everything excluding humans? Or is it mere existence? Nature is non-sentient, non-judgemental, non-needy. It doesn’t need anyone. You’re right about nature not needing us. We need it. But what if we fuck it up beyond recognition? Who’s to judge but ourselves?
We don’t owe our existence to anyone. Our ability to drastically improve or impair this planet is the direct result of evolution. We may be the poison that kills its creator, but you can’t go around blaming the poison.
[Quickly switches Poison to "virus"]
The virus however needs to survive. We know that if we continue to fuck things up, we’re going to perish. If we don’t do something about it. Everything that matters to us is about continuing the human race, not about continuing nature. Because if you cared more about nature than yourself, you’d have given up your life by now.
I guess it all depends on the perspective. As humans we want to survive, but looking at the big picture, we sure don’t need to survive, and we almost certainly won’t survive. After all humans are just one of many species, and even though we have a big influence right now, that’s probably gonna change sometime.
You’re comparing humans to a virus, but a Virus has the ability to hit and run, enabling it to survive even if it kills its host. I doubt that we’ll survive, if we fuck up our host. Keeping that in mind, maybe we should use our intelligence* to save our host.
*I seriously doubt that we are intelligent as a species. Single humans are smart, no doubt about it, but when it comes to crowds of humans, we’re kind of retarded.
“we continue to eat chicken…”
Mmm… chicken! Fuck the tigers. Save the chickens. No wait, roast them and gimme!
I’d like to think of the “Intelligence, collective consciousness, and documented history could be far greater evolutionary achievements on nature’s part, than something as minor as a four legged carnivore” piece as one intelligent guy’s thoughts about the state of things, but it seems to be the exact kind of destructive arrogance that human beings as a retarded selfish species collectively are determined to unleash. Really don’t know how to argue over this; the whole thing seems to be a big paradox.
I’m not advocating that we throw out our morals and start hunting down wild beast. My problem is with this wrongful marketing of a concept of saving the Tiger; something insignificant compared to the difficulties we’re facing on this planet. Instead of even thinking of saving the tiger, we need to deal with crucial problems that threaten our survival on this planet. Yes, I consider the survival of human species as something more important than the survival of tigers. Am I wrong in thinking that?
The positive side effect of us trying to save our planet, is that the Tigers get saved too.
Of course you’re not wrong! In that sense, I do agree wholeheartedly. Things (saving tigers included) _would_ fall into place as a part of the sum if people actually did went all Captain Planet-ey. But the collective selfish retards that we are, would we ever? The tigers are probably doomed.
But about this whole glamourous Saving the Tigers nonsense, I did say a big “Fuck You” to Aircel in my own words a few weeks ago.
BTW, You probably might like this http://theregoesathought.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/save-our-tigers-really/
Sheds a lot of research-light on why Aircel is running a big hogwash.
Hey Goobi, I’ve just been following your blogs and boy it is fun. The “Save the tiger campaign” sure is a big marketing gimmick and no tiger can be saved by plain smsing or shouting off philosophical one liners.
Your thoughts are probably a darker version or you can say the elaboration of Darwin’s theory of “Survival of the fittest”. It sure is going to be a whale of a task to save tigers as there involves a huge amount of effort to “unscrew” our environment.
I agree to a huge extent that yes human is selfish but i guess at the same time we just can’t be ignorant about issues (including tigers) related to nature.
If tigers need to live properly they need huge space and a lot of food. Even if they somehow survive, their life would still be fucked up. They probably would be starving for weeks before they get some food to eat. Might else well let them go, so we can build ‘Walt Disney land’ in their habitual place..or something of that sort.
How many species have survived on earth and are now extinct. Nature probably has a list called – ‘The Extinction list’ for those species it doesn’t want anymore before ‘Aircel’ came to amend that list.- ‘How know, so mighty!!!!’……….. DUMB FUCKS.
For all you know nature made us humans probably to kill tigers… ‘I ordered the meteorites to kill the dinosaurs long ago. A quick and effective task but too expensive. Recession and stuff I can’t afford those things any longer. I’ll just make something that can talk, walk and do retarded things (which they can claim as ‘logical’) to eliminate the tigers. Oh!! And also for years I never had pollutants in the air, I might also need them to fuck the environment a little bit, before I think of something to kill those fucklets”
Aircel’s plan to tamper with nature’s ‘The Extinction List’ is fucking me up. You bunch of cretins, What fuckin good are they to me? The biggest harm is your fucked up concern for them by posting retarded television advertisements in between my Seinfeld shows.
@Sobertooth: My goal is to make people think for themselves. Are you really saving the Tiger? Why are you saving it? Can we save it? More often than not, people want to save the Tiger; they just don’t know that the mere act of not killing a tiger is actually not doing shit to save it.
If you want to save the tiger, it’s got to be an active effort. It means you have to create a habitable environment where Tigers can breed. Where if there isn’t a habitable environment, we’re fucked, too.
Yeah…that is what I meant by saying “unscrew” or environment. Creating a natural habitat for Tigers, would be a Herculean task. Well it’s more than humorous when ppl actually think that they are doing enough by “not killing the tigers” .
It’s a bit dejecting as there has been no sincere effort make this specie proliferate.
I said I did agree with you as to the awareness about the case of the missing tiger is just not on the right track…it’s still at the oh-it-sounds-so-cool phase.
But awareness is all it takes.
Keep writing man…it’s fun to read them.
>Intelligence, collective consciousness, and documented history could be far greater evolutionary achievements on nature’s part, than something as minor as a four legged carnivore.
If it’s so trivial, there shouldn’t be such categorical differentiation. Right? If the spots are able to send forth a message in a format through which people can decipher many more things they would have otherwise never thought about, what’s wrong?
>Our priority should be to create a sustainable environment for the natural ecosystem to thrive. We need cleaner sources of energy, better laws and administration at from our government, and we need to understand that the last link of the chain is not nearly as important as the first.
This has been voiced time and again for donkey’s years. How has that ever helped us? Our education is all about success, nothing about sustenance. Don’t know about Goa, but when पान पराग wrappers still continue to increase in number on land where no flora can prosper we obviously don’t like to take any responsibility. Another thing that’s been repeated time and again, which is worth repeating again here – our system only makes our people more literate, only a few millions end up being educated.
These ads are not aimed at us. They’re aimed at the lowest common denominator.
I totally agree this is bull shit lots of people in Haiti and many unknown are starving and dying everyday and everyone is more intrested in saving these so called tigers …. wtf ?
I totally agree too, but I don´t think this people dying in Haiti or wherever are more important than tigers, besides, there´s a small bunch of tigers and BILLIONS of people starving, so there´s a huge difference in the amount of resources needed to save these billion people and the tigers, some thousand times…
I agree to the point that it´s our breeding the main cause of concern, human reproduction is the problem and it should be addressed, instead of stupid “climate change, save the bears, coalas, pandas…” bullshit
The title of this article seemed to be a little rude, initially. But after reading the entire article I wouldn’t complain about it. I completely agree with Goobi about we trying to save a particular specie and overshadowing the fact that no matter how hard we try we can only make it exist a little longer. Unless we do something about the environment and make earth a better place to live, we cannot save everything thats around us.
The advertisement says “Lets write blog and share concern about the tigers.”, but now I wonder about how good will it do? Will the poachers stop doing what they do by reading such articles or will we start serving ourself’s to the Tigers for them to survive? I am not against saving the Tigers. Tigers are one of my favorite species. God save them all.
All I want is, for people to be more concerned about saving the nature, which in-turn will benefit everyone. Be it humans or animals.
Help the environment and environment shall will help you and everyone in it.
we have to come forward and take initiation to rude out this problem
we have to come forward and take initiation to rude out this problem previous abhishek is also me
Dear sirs,
1. Who are Milind Alvares parents?
2. Assuming the law and administration is in place, how do we avoid people from throwing sweet packets into the ganges river?
3. Are these facts in this link wrong? http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/why-tigers-matter.html
4. What do all of you suggest we do about saving India’s national animal?
Cheers!
1. None of your business.
2. Do something. Talk to people who throw garbage. Clean up after them if you have to. Organize and educate by action. But don’t sign petitions and don’t make empty speeches.
3. They’re not wrong, but nothing right about it either. Sure everyone who reads it with nod along and agree that tigers shouldn’t be killed, but they’re getting killed anyway. As for the list itself, it’s purely selfish, in that we’re seeing the value of tigers to us, in an aesthetic or emotional sense.
4. Do something. I believe Aircel, NDTV and Sanctuary are going to collect a million signatures to present to the PM. And they believe that will change things. Bullshit. What’s the power of a signature? Do you think the PM believes all of us want the tiger extinct? If people really care about the tiger, devote some time to the cause, and make a scene outside the PM’s office. Be a nuisance. Organize yourselves and find out who the poachers are (it won’t be very difficult), and invade their channels. Make an example of them. But sure as hell don’t sign a petition.
Cheers for your reply.
1) You suggested 2). With the same application, can we use this list http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/why-tigers-matter.html and organize and educate people who are ignorant of the tiger’s plight?
2) Is signing a petition harmful?
3) Are these below lies too?
B) WWF Russia Tiger Success – http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/results.html
‘Brought back from the brink
By the 1940s, hunting had driven the Amur tiger to the brink of extinction, with no more than 40 individuals remaining in the wild. The subspecies was saved by Russia, becoming the first country in the world to grant the tiger full protection – and also by the Cold War, which saw the tiger’s forest home completely closed off to most people. By the 1980s, the population had increased to around 500. Despite an increase in poaching following the collapse of the Soviet empire, continued conservation and anti-poaching efforts by many partners, including WWF, have helped keep the population relatively stable.’
D) Wildlife NGOs Obstacles – The reduction of Bengal tigers to 1,411 is due to these obstacles in this link http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/asian-wildlife/christy-text it is 15 pages long. Please take your time to read. If we give up now, all these efforts of these good guys will be lost!
[Admin note: Combined all comments into one, though some are still missing for some reason]
Is signing a petition harmful? Yes it is. By signing a petition, an individual assumes that they have done something to save the tiger, when in fact they haven’t. You need to make people realise, that sitting in their homes, feeling sorry for the cute baby tiger during the Aircel ad, and then signing some random petition as part of a college or work initiative, isn’t going to help.
Is that WWF “why tigers matter” list (which is total bullcrap) going to help? Shit no. First of all, tigers aren’t important to the ecosystem, as I’ve mentioned in my initial writeup. They just aren’t. If the tigers go extinct, we would have no problem continuing our lives on this planet. They’re important to us, so that we feel better about ourselves. Which is fine, there’s no harm in preserving a wild cat. People like to look at Tigers,and know that they’re out there, so whatever, preserve them. Point is, people know.
As for your examples, well sure. We certainly could use more forest protection, but what does the cute baby tiger on the tv screen have to do with that? We need better environment laws, and more importantly, better ways to enforce them. It’s going to be tough, and the struggle will probably not yield any result in a country like India. But if there’s one certainty, it’s that petitions aren’t going to do shit.
What were we talking about again? Went off on a rant there…
Thank you for your thoughts.
1) Are you writing that all scientific evidence is just part of a conspiracy to save the tiger?
2) If 1) is ‘yes’, then is it the same as disputing scientific evidence that smoking or fast food causes cancer. If the stubborn consumer is finally diagnosed, then it has to be true. If this is applied to this list http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/why-tigers-matter.html will it be too late to regret then?
3) In your initial write up:
A) Let me start by saying I’m not against tigers. I think they should be protected, and allowed to regenerate their population.
B) Nature doesn’t give a shit about Tigers. Nature doesn’t need tigers. Existence is not depending on whether or not tigers roam this planet. What are we saving them for. Our children?
Please explain these contradicting statements.
4) What evidence or authority do you have to dispute all these?
5) If all scientific evidence is a conspiracy, are we living in a false world too?
Cheers!
WWF India Tiger Success – They have been in India for only 40 years. This is their link http://wwfindia.org/who_we_are/ Look at their success with the Bengal tiger.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/results.html
‘Project Tiger: Rebuilding tiger populations, Tiger numbers in India were crashing in the late 1970s – down from an estimated 40,000 in the 1930s to fewer than 2,400.’
http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw_international/save_animals/other/tiger.php
‘A 1993 census of Bengal tigers found 3,750 animals.’
http://saveourtigers.com/
‘Just 1411 left’
I’m bored of this discussion. Seems like I’m saying the same thing over and over again.
TIGERS ARE NOT ECOLOGICALLY IMPORTANT. Not as important as frogs. Not as important as birds. Not as important as beers. If those go, we’re all fucked. If Tigers go, we can only bow our heads in shame over how we collectively drove to extinction such a majestic creature.
Aircel is not going to save the tiger. They want to sell you more phone connections by appearing to be benevolent and caring. They aren’t doing shit. Petitions aren’t going to save the tiger; they’re less useful than paperweight. You need action to save the tiger, and unfortunate as it may seem, that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a reality.
goobi, why r u wasting ur precious life in talking about some nonsense. In the woods Tigers will be shouting “Save Goobi” lol