Tiger, Tiger, Burning – Gone

By Alan Hindle

Tuesday May 29, 2007

The US National Geographic Society’s 2001 census of tigers remaining in India has proved drastically upbeat. Estimates made just six years ago numbering the giant cats between 5000-7000 is proving actually to be somewhere between 2000 and several hundred. Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India states that these new and officially recognised numbers represent a “major step forward that a government study has finally come to terms with this disastrous decrease in tiger numbers.”

Certainly the tigers must be ecstatic.

You can read more on the Discovery Channel’s website where you can marvel that the story — in fact the entire website — is sponsored by Shell Oil. It would be even funnier if the site was sponsored by Esso, if they had their mascot Petro the Tiger, or whatever his kid-friendly name is, waving in flash animation and telling the kids to remind their parents to buy a tiger-shaped windshield wiper while supplies last. And even funnier still if there was anything fucking funny at all about governments capable of hiccoughing relevant little facts like, “Oh! Sorry, guess the tigers are gone! Whoopsie!”