Student - 25

Summary:

• There were once 8 subspecies of tigers but now there are only 5. Most big cats are either endangered or near to it.
• Tiger hunting used to an elite sport. One man killed 3000 tigers (that is the entire tiger population now). There are only 10,000 tigers in captivity.
• Climate change, deforestation and overgrazing are destroying habitat for many animals. There are roughly 500,000,000 cows in India grazing on the land. 6 billion tons of soil is lost per year in India due to monsoon rain on deforested and overgrazed land.
• 1,000,000,000 people in India; those in rural areas have high birthrates. More people means less animal habitat because more wood is being cut down for fuel.

Opinion:

I think Mr. Marr is a very good speaker. He did not put all the blame on any one person or group of people; instead, he put a little bit of blame on everyone. I hadn�t known anything about tigers really, so what he had to say was very interesting and new to me. The only issue I had with the presentation was that there wasn�t any time for questions (which I guess wasn�t a good idea considering the other class didn�t take advantage of their Q&A time). I liked how there was a wide array of topics covered; not just saving tigers, but humanitarian ideas such as helping Indians and other primitive societies how to not be dependent on wood for fuel.

After debriefing the day following the presentation, I had a morbid epiphany; no matter what people do there will always be suffering, human or animal. There is no political party with all the answers. If people exist, animals will die. My dad works at the Columbus zoo so I was raised to love animals. That being said, I still hold people above animals. Why? Perhaps human nature. But perhaps all conservatism does is keep wildlife around longer rather than forever. I think all animals, including humans (because that�s what we are, animals), are all doomed. Morbid, I know.
 

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