Tiger talk

Tigers are an animal of grace and beauty. You could be excused for having some serious misconceptions about them if you had read from our library lately. Thanks to a collection of three books, we believe some wildly interesting things about tigers around here.

1. Tigers like to drink pink milk (especially before bed). Thanks Lauren Child. 'I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed' (Charlie and Lola Series)
2. Tigers, if invited to tea, will drink and eat you out of house and home. You will then have to go to a cafe for your dinner. 'The Tiger who came to Tea' is a 1968 book by Judith Kerr.
3. Tigers like to wear clothes and turn into ghee when they chase each others tails too fast. That one is courtesy of the 'Little Black Sambo' by Helen Bannerman (1899).

I think it is time for a trip to the Zoo to see Molek and Oz and their three cubs again! For those of you who wonder why Zoos exist and why they keep tigers?
Zoos around the world are carefully managing their tiger populations in order to ensure they can keep generating all these conservation benefits for at least the next century, and this also ensures that should there ever be a need for a reintroduction of tigers using zoo stocks, suitable animals will be available. However, the driving force behind maintenance of zoo tiger populations is to prevent extinction in the wild, rather than to attempt to cure it after the event! Large carnivores such as tigers are among the most difficult animals to reintroduce successfully, primarily because of the potential for conflict with humans, and the best strategy is to avoid the need.

Tiger Streaks

Her nose works overtime.

Out of the shade
in slow motion
she tracks
the scent of food.

Ravenous, the tiger
stretches out her paws
to seize the branch
in search of meat
she dangles
from tip to toe,
an elongated streak
of carrot and coal

To the shadows
she steals back
empty pawed.