Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Amur (Siberian) tigers back in China!

And you probably didn't know there were gone. But they were. Through hunting and habitat loss, the population dwindled to 40. FORTY. Now there are 400 and about 380 of these are in Russia. We tend to think of tigers as living in the jungle - and Bengal tigers do- but this subspecies live in temperate forests. 

I find tigers terrifying. Even more so that they live in temperate forest. If I went to the Arctic, I'd expect polar bears; when I was in Brazil, I expected jaguars (and yes, they followed me a number of times); but it wouldn't occur to me if I was in China  and in habitat like Pennsylvania that I might be killed and consumed by a tiger. 

Of course it's millions of times more likely that me and anyone reading this will be killed by a microbe.

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