Save the Royal Cats

How cruel and exploitative man has been of the wild life finds a poignant expression in the size of the current tiger population in the world which stands precariously reduced to 4,622 from roughly 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century. These royal cats have been sacrificed at the altar of our greed for wealth; and 'aspiration' for better health and, shamefully, for enhanced sexual vigour. The revelations, made at the first general assembly of the Global Tiger Forum in the capital on Tuesday, certainly land a big blow to our collective conscience and the much bragged about superiority as human beings. Thankfully, there are groups of activists, like the Forum, who have been working for years with utmost dedication to protect and help the wildlife prosper. These are the people who can bring about an end to the cruelty on wild creatures and every conscious citizen of the world should rally around them, not only out of compassion for wild life but also out of self-interest. For disturbance of our eco-system essentially endangers our own existence.

In Bangladesh, consciousness about environment and eco-system is still at a very nascent stage. Although we have actively participated in international conventions on environment and ecology, the ground reality is that we have not quite lived up to our responsibilities. As a result, environment degradation in the form of air and water pollution, deforestation and depletion of water body has continued at an alarming rate. To make matters worse, we have allowed poaching of wild beasts to continue. The Royal Bengal Tiger we used to, and perhaps still do, take pride in now have steadily decreased in number. Fortunately, we still have 362 of these majestic felines left in the Sunderbans. Let us renew our commitments to conservation of wild life and work for reversing the trend towards their extinction. Let us hope that in a few years' time, the reduction in tiger population will be completely stemmed.