By Mithi Dey

'Can you help me find my mother, she has left me alone for hunting'-says a two months old cub. He is hungry, scared to make a loud roar and helpless to search his mother. He is trembling with fear and begging to save him out from becoming an orphan.' This is the cry of every cub!

Today, our India is left with only 1411 Tigers and their existence is under threat. 'Save Our Tiger' -the recently launched television commercial by AIRCEL has framed a mission to preserve our wildlife heritage.

The zeal with which the Project Tiger was initiated in 1972, by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, has deviated from its ambition. The most recent Tiger Task Force headed by Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh in 2005 has also brought red alert to all poaching networks. But, all legal practices resulted in vain. As of now, out of the 40, 000 population of tigers in the last century, only a mere lives are left.

The Global Tiger Workshop conducted on 2009 highlighted the main cause for the sharp declination in the tiger population. Excessive poaching for illegal trade, habitat loss and fragmentation are major reason behind the plight of this wild animals. The production of traditional medicine is nothing new in this world. But, it's not a good deal to make curing processes at the expense of precious lives. Way back, in 1991, Chinese authorities have disclosed the export of tiger bone medicines, that included 15079 cartoons of tablets, 5250 kg of liquid syrups and 31500 bottles of wine.

Add to this, a most recent study organized by WWF(World Wild Fund) in 2010, stressed on the effect of climate change on the Royal Bengal Tiger. It has been estimated that by 2070, the sea-level will rise to 11.2 inches above 2000 levels and may gulp the entire mangrove forest, of Sunderban National Park (West Bengal). The iconic species is under the spell of greenhouse effect and the world's largest population are likely to disappear by the end of this century.

In this era, number of issues are popping up with or without concern. We, human-beings are the only species to fight against any odds. Lets not cut down the wild habitat and build dream-like houses for ourself. Lets be responsible and put on best effort to help maintain our earth's ecological balance. The heart-touching visual ends up with question mark on our mind. But, can we afford to leave the issue without support? Its high time to hear the cry of our national animal and let them live. 'Save Our Tigers' - Their end indicates the beginning of our end.

By Aditya V Kumar

Unnatural deaths of tigers are increasing alarmingly and it has forced them to the verge of extinction. A research by the WWF has shown that there are just 1411 wild tigers left in the India, 50 in China and less than 3,200 in the US. Like all other animals and human-beings tigers do have the right to survive. Tigers who are classified as wild-cats are important for our survival too. Being at the top of the ecosysytem' s food pyramid their well being ensures the entire system is in order. The three main reasons why tigers are dying today are Poaching, Man-Animal Conflicts and Loss of their Habitat. The only way by which we can stop poaching is by ensuring that the poor who kill tigers and sell their skin to make a living are able to make it by other means. Once poaching stops, illegal trade of tiger-skin, their bones and other parts will become impossible.

Today, tigers are loosing their habitat because people are destroying the forests by felling trees for timber to large-scale destruction for industries and roads in the name of development. But we also have to think about the villagers whose living depend on the forests. To save our forests, we must help the villagers in earning a decent income for their living. By preventing deforestation we will not only help the tigers but ourselves as forests are the source of our rivers, streams and play an essential role in attracting rainfall and preventing soil-erosion. Tigers are territorial animals and they need their own unique space to live. So if we destroy their habitat they will move out to create their own territories. we have to protect our forests for the safety of tigers else they will take to straying into villages and cities and get killed due to fear.

All this sounds difficult but it is not. The population density in Asian countries has always been very high as compared to the West. Especially in countries like India people have traditionally shared space with many different kinds of species especially wild-carnivores which are almost extinct in the West. Tigers still have a great chance to live if we live up to that tradition. So we all must try to protect this endangered species from extinction.