Bengal Tiger, Female Drinking, India Photographic Print
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Bengal (Indian) tigers are said to represent about half the tigers left in the wild worldwide. As various authorities give figures for Bengal tigers ranging from about 3000 to 5000 left, it’s obvious that all tigers are endangered. The main threats to the tiger are habitat loss and poaching.

Habitats are lost due to global warming and consequent rise in sea levels flooding the traditional ranges of coastal tigers, like those living on the delta of the River Ganges in India. Human activities also destroy habitat – farming, logging and just the piecemeal expansion of human settlements.

Perhaps one of the biggest threats is from poaching. There is trafficking, not only in tiger skins but also in their bones and body parts. These are used in traditional Chinese medicine in spite of some leaders of this discipline stating that tiger bones and body parts are not essential and other substances can be used instead.

Read more about the Bengal Tiger in the Wild.

I’m going through a period of re-reading some of my favourite books at the moment. Currently I’m reading the Complete Father Brown Stories by G.K. Chesterton. They are short stories and gentle mysteries. There are no real clues for the reader to follow, we just have to admire Father Brown’s deduction, mostly based on a knowledge of human nature and psychology.

Next I’m going to read Kim by Rudyard Kipling, a story of a young boy in India who is the orphaned son of a British soldier taken in by an Indian woman. He’s completely assimilated in Indian culture and gets caught up in the ‘Great Game’ of spying between Britain and Russia. I’ve read it a few times and I always find it entrancing. When you read this book, you realise that Kipling was no racist. On the contrary, it is obvious the respect he had for Indians and the culture of India.