PUNE, INDIA

Tales of a Scorched Earth

In late October of 1994, this cub (pictured) was born in a small preservation in Pune, India. Unfortunately for her, she was crippled at birth unlike her healthy sibling. The cure was simple, since her hind legs were weak, she only required exercise to strengthen herself. Unfortunately, at this animal preserve, this simple treatment wasn't administered, thus keeping the cub immobile while it awaited its death. In December of 1994, Vijay Walvekar (who at the time was involved with this sanctuary) diagnosed the problem and started helping this eight week old cub. He did this by holding her tail up an allowing

her weak hind legs to walk with a less burden of her own weight. Within a week, she went from immobile to walking with a slight limp. A great improvement for a cub who till this time had never walked. But unfortunately, Mr. Walvekar eventually had to return back to the United States and thus was unable to track the progress of this cub back to health. When he returned in three months, the cub was dead. What happened? Well, since the keepers didn't have the necessary man-power and money, they didn't nurse her till she fully recovered and her leg slowly degraded till she couldn't walk again and eventually died (likely of starvation). This is a big problem,

people just sit at home assuming that everything in the world is being taken care of because someone is involved. But the people involved in preservation activities aren't necessarily successful, either because they don't care, or just fail. This means just because the WWF (see link on main page) tries to help doesn't mean good things happen. There are a lot of factors involved in conservation; and in a poverty stricken country such as India, the welfare of the tiger is only second in importance compared to individual wealth. Plus, with increasing poaching efforts by eastern cultures in the Indian sub-continent and China, such careless deaths must be avoided in the future. Thus, it has to be a world effort that ensures a thriving community of tigers on earth. Please see the "GET INVOLVED" link to the left and help out. The tiger is indeed a highly endangered specie whose numbers must grow substantially in the near future to avoid extinction.

You can see that in the picture below that the right hind leg is weak and bent inward as she tries to walk.

10/1994 - 02/1995