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Young World
In the fading light
NIMI KURIAN
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If the tiger fascinates you then this is the book for you.
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The world’s current population of tigers represents only five of the original eight subspecies into which the tiger was divided: the Amur, the Bengal, the Indo-Chinese, the South-China and the Sumatran… Of the original eight subspecies, at least three are now extinct!
Today there are an estimated five thousand to seven thousand tigers living in the wild, spanning 18 countries, from the snowy Russian Far East to the dense sweltering jungles of Sumatra.
These are a couple of chilling details that appear in the Illustrated Tigers of India by Valmik Thapar. The book is divided into four parts: Introducing the tiger; Tiger Factsheet; The Life of the Tiger; and The Future of the Tiger.
Elaborate sketches by Kallol Majumdar that appear on almost every page bring alive the subject. There is a colour photo feature with close-up pictures of tigers in their natural habitat and also some rather unusual ones. The photographs are by Bittu Sahgal, K.M. Narayana Swamy and Sudhir Shivaram. There are also essays by K. Ullas Karanth, M. Monirul H. Khan and Fateh Singh Rathore and excerpts from Kailash Sankhala’s book Tiger! The Story of the Indian Tiger.
The history
The introduction begins with the origins of the tiger, tracing the animal back to almost 50 million years “long before anything recognisable as today’s big cats existed.” The section on Tigers Today is rather grim with the statistics of the number of tigers in the wild today all over the world. The Life of the Tiger begins with the birth and takes you through the tiger’s life, covering its family life, the role of the protective mother, family life, the threats cubs face and then progressing to the break up of the family, and with the cub an adult the markings, messages and communication, hunting, courtship, mating and more. Finally, there is the chapter on the Future of the Tiger. Thapar says, “It (the tiger) is vainishing rapidly from many of its habitats.” He goes on to talk about the year 2004-2005 when almost 80 tigers from seven protected areas “are gone — probably poached”. In conclusion he makes a plea for the tiger: The tiger’s future, he says, is entirely dependent on it being left alone by human beings. The role of human beings is to create and protect inviolate tiger habitats.”
An altogether interesting book with a lot of detail, written simply yet fascinatingly.
THE ILLUSTRATED TIGERS OF INDIA
Valmik Thapar, Oxford University Press, Rs. 225
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