Wildlife VS Furlesses: Tiger

 

Crap, they found me. She could feel them…even with her mouth loaded with the sinuous flesh of the sambar deer clenched in her mighty jaws, she could scent them. Furlesses. She knew they were close, but fortunately she was between them and her cubs, moving ever closer to her hungry babies.

Crap, they're sitting in a Furlessmobile, she thought, not wanting to waste precious time on a Furless confrontation. This nice fresh meat will rot on the bone and my babies will starve if Furlesses get nervous and I get pissy with them. They always carry boom sticks – like I'm more of a threat to them then they are to me. Maybe if I just keep moving forward like I don't care about them…like this deer is the only thing I'm about – getting this deer to my babies.

And it worked. The woman and the man in the car were none other than China-born Grace Ge Gabriel and Ashok Kumar from India – both conservationists and wildlife advocates – advocates of wildlife everywhere.

Gabriel has a special place in her heart for tigers. She was born in the year of the tiger, at dusk, no less, when tigers hunt and her mother always compared her to the big cat. She'd always been relentless when pursuing her goals, never backing down or giving up – just like a tiger.

Fortunately for this tiger and her cubs, Grace Ge Gabriel's passion and supreme goal was standing up for animals – their right to live in peace, raise their young, and not be chopped up for tiger bone tea or worse, their pelts, heads, paws, by some barbaric trophy hunter to hang on his walls.

Wait…what? The mother tiger stood, deer carcass still firmly clamped in her powerful jaws, astonished. The Furlessmobile was backing away. The path is mine? She took a wary step forward, then continued on her way. No trick, apparently. A friendly (or scared shitless) Furless with no boomstick to orphan her babies.

Grace Ge Gabriel is indeed an ally to tigers. So is Ashok Humar, her guide for that day and a fellow conservationist from India. Gabriels' mission in life is to get the word out about wildlife, like tigers for instance: While they are the pride of Asia, in China, they are allowed to be farmed and speed-bred for their body parts used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, even though animal ingredients in pharmacological compounds have been banned, including tiger bone tea.

However, though the substances have been banned, the Chinese Wildlife Protection Law allows the farming and breeding because the animals are economically and culturally valuable. Economic value always seems to trump animals' rights and the ecosystems they are a vital part of.

Gabriel is working with Tradition Chinese Medicine practitioners, who she respects, to replace the 3 percent of animals ingredients in the medicines with alternate ingredients. She knows if there is no demand, the threat will be lessened and tigers may flourish – or at least survive.

In addition to tiger body parts being used in the above ways, accidental death comes to many of the few tigers left in the wild. Today there are only 3200 as opposed to 100 thousand in the 1920s, thanks to snares and poisons left by hunters for other animals like deer and boars.  In 2007, in Hunchun region, there was a de-snaring campaign. Within a few days, 1800 snares were removed. And there is also poaching.

Gabriel, along with a group of conservationists created Love Tiger, to get the word out about tigers. There is only one social media in China: WeChat. All other global media are censored by the government.

That's why Grace Ge Gabriel urges everyone with a social media page to spread the word about tigers and all endangered wildlife. Educate others. Drop Conservationists' names and tell their stories as often and as far and wide as you can. Spread a message of kindness and compassion so loud it drowns out those who destroy wildlife and the habitats that sustain it. Remind people to share the planet. Wildlife was here before Furlesses, after all.

SOURCES:

"Wild Lives" by Lori Robinson and Janie Chodosh

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IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare):

Grace Ge Gabriel – Regional Director - Asia

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Tiger Farming and Traditional Chinese Medicine by Laurel Neme

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'It's really good stuff': Undercover at a Chinese tiger bone wine auction (The Guardian)

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