Year of Biodiversity and Tiger Updates

UN's International Year of Biodiversity is really taking off. Besides educating about biodiversity, there is a PUMA ad campaign, constant press releases, inspiring stories of people and groups doing what they can to promote a healthy world, and so much more! They are even partnering with WWF to promote Earth Hour, which is coming soon.

The website is loaded with all kinds of informative videos, podcasts, photos, and other goodies designs to inspire and educate. There is even a calendar with all the events that are going on for this year. Truly, UNEP has done a fabulous job with trying to get the message out there.

On the other end, the WWF year of the tiger isn't doing so bad either! They are constantly releasing articles on the fight for the tiger like this one about Chinese medicine societies rejecting tiger bones. This is a very big step to conserving these amazing creatures.

So between learning about awesome animals here on Potspoon!, reading up on biodiversity, learning about tigers and how you can help, and the upcoming Earth Hour, how have you been impacting your world?

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Tiger Tales

In Eastern zodiac, 2010 is the year of the tiger (not to be confused with UN's Year of Biodiversity). To celebrate this, the WWF has set up a few educational things to teach people about this greatly endangered animal. Since I wrote my first post about tigers, the number of tigers in the wild has gone down by almost half. Pretty scary.

On the WWF tiger site, you will find lots of information about the animal itself, what problems this creature faces, different sub-species, why they are important, and more. They even created a "trouble-spots" map with information on why everyone is involved with the destruction of these creatures. Go check it out to find out the many ways you can help.



Image from Tambako the Jaguar's Flickr photostream and is licensed under creative commons.

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Suckling Pig...

Well, I am still here. I know it has been a few (not that many, I think) days since I posted anything, it has just been weird around here and I just have been coming home from school and work with my brain fried. Really. Like an egg. Because of my lack of ability to think of anything at the moment, I leave you with this... A pig nursing three tiger cubs: a new way of interpreting "suckling pig." So cute.

I will post something... don't worry. I write down all my post ideas, sometimes they just don't come out right!

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Horrid Tiger News and Tiger Info

So in an article I found on the BBC, Researchers at 2 different animal parks in China were offered tiger wine. This is pretty much tiger, yes ferocious, growly, cute, stripy tiger, soaked in rice wine. Despite a ban on poaching and using tigers for goods, numbers are still declining. You can read more here.

Since I found this article, I will talk about tigers for a bit.

Scientific Name: Panthera tigris

This cat is the largest of the cats. There are 8 subspecies of tiger; 3 of which are already extinct. No two tigers have the same stripe pattern. They are as unique as a humans fingerprints. The last wild white tiger was seen in the 1950's. It was a cub and became the "father" of all white tigers in captivity. White tigers are usually larger at birth and adulthood, probably a genetic trait allowing better chance for survival despite their coloration. However, due to inbreeding in captivity, birth defects are emerging. They are inbred because this trait is in high demand.

Behavior
Tigers are a bit strange in that, unlike all other cats, they LOVE water and are very strong swimmers. They are also very solitary except for a mother with cubs. They are very territorial.

Reproduction
Females are only receptive for a few days and in these days mating is very heavy. Gestation is only 16 weeks and cubs are about 2 pounds when born.

There is tons of information online on how we can help save these big cats. There are only about 7,500 of them left in the wild.

A great video to watch is Kingdom of the Tiger, an IMAX film.

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