Every year we observe a number of days in order to recognize various causes, be it World Earth Day, Water Day or World Animal Day. But, among all these days experts believe that International Tiger Day is worth observing as there are only a few tigers remaining in the world. According to a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report, this has resulted due to the excessive amount of poaching and trafficking of tigers.
International Tiger Day is celebrated every year on 29 July to raise the awareness for tiger conservation and the problems facing tigers as their population plummet to an all-time low. Every year, the authorities create a slogan for Internationa Tiger Day and this year the day will be celebrated with the slogan Fresh Ecology for Tigers’ Protection.
The event, which is also known as World Tiger Day was first created in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit at a point when wild tigers were facing extinction and since then it has been celebrating the day for protecting the tigers. The celebration is aimed to double the cat population by 2022.
However, these two are not the only reasons and problems like habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and climate change are also responsible for need of wildlife conservation. At present, the situation is already beyond critical.
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Traffic, National Geographic and several other organizations across the globe have been campaigning for Tiger Day. As per the statistics of WWF, only 3,890 tigers are left in the world and out of them India has the highest number of tigers with a total of 2,500.
But, the wildlife experts say that the rising sea levels and coastal erosion caused by global warming are steadily shrinking the mangroves of Sunderbans (India and Bangladesh) that is quite threatening for the survival of the endangered tigers. The natural spaces have to be preserved to ensure the survival of the tigers, as they need a lot of space to roam around in their natural habitat. And, the most important point is that this preservation will eventually lead to a better eco system that will help the human beings as well.
Sudarsan Pattnaik, a sand artist from India has created a wonderful sand sculpture to celebrate World Tiger Day. In this gallery, IBTimes Singapore has compiled a series of images where the large cat can be seen in its full glory.
Source: International Business Time
More to read: International Tiger Day 2016