In the beginning

Why not start the blog with a photo of Lakshmi my favourite tigress (Bandhavgarh).

Well this is the first post in the Tiger Stripes blog. I hope in the near future there'll be posts directly from naturalists in India providing views, opinions and updates from some of India's most famous tiger reserves.

Last night I travelled to London to see a presentation by Valmik Thapar, at the Zoological Society of London, about the current plight of the tiger in India. Valmik pulled no punches regarding the reality of the situation and argued passionately that the challenge that faces India is not increasing the number of tigers but how many can they realistically save as viable populations. In an ideal world that would be to maintain the current 1200 or so, but in some states numbers are so low that they might not be viable.

The list of problems facing the tiger are many, but a clear theme was that the most serious long term threat is inactivity by the various government departments in India. With all the issues facing India it's easy to see why wildlife might slip down the priority list, but the presence of tigers in the remaining forests of India provide a significantly under sold tourist attraction, while the forests themselves provide essential environmental services to hundreds of millions of India's poor, through the provision of CLEAN water. Valmik clearly sees his role and that of his countrymen to change opinions in India's federal and state governments, and hope to identify the right people to fight for wildlife and India's environment. In places this has happened and small but significant successes have been achieved.

However, there was no perscription for what we in other countries should do. Valmik suggested it was for us to decide how best to help as individuals and for NGOs to reassess their strategies. Tiger Stripes.org is my attempt to highlight the individual tigers that are monitored by committed individuals fighting for India's tigers and thus provide us with a resource to keep up to date with the beautiful animals who mesmerished us in the jungle.

Less than a mile to go

This year I also decided to raise money for the tiger charity, 21st Century Tiger, by running in the world's biggest half marathon, the Bupa Great North Run, dressed as a tiger. This I achieved in a time of 2hrs 14mins and at the time of writing I have raised £560 mainly from the sponsorship of my friends, family and colleagues. There's a link to the donation sight on the tiger_stripes website, which will remain open for donations until the end of 2008