The Junior Age

Category: Animals

India’s Roaring Tigers: A Big Triumph for Animal Conservation

Remember when we thought tigers in India might disappear forever? However, India has done an amazing job of protecting its national animal ! A brand new study in a super-important science magazine called ‘Science’ tells a different story – a story of amazing tiger recovery!

India is now the proud home to the largest numbers of tigers anywhere in the world. . In just ten years, the tiger population in India has doubled to more than 3,600. More than 75% of the world’s striped big cats now live in India The tigers live in an area of 138,200 sq km.  Over the past twenty years, India’s tiger numbers have grown by a whopping 30%!  That’s like adding 30 new tigers for every 100 that were already there!  They’re now roaming across a huge area, bigger than ever before.

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Image Credit: weather.com

The secret to India’s tiger success:

Safe Homes:  India has created special tiger reserves, like national parks, where humans don’t disturb the tigers. These are like tiger mansions!

Connecting the Dots:  Imagine stepping stones across a river.  These “stepping stones” for tigers are called corridors. They link the tiger reserves, allowing tigers to roam freely and find new homes.

Helping Hands:  When local communities are involved in protecting tigers, it makes a big difference.  When people understand how important tigers are, they help keep them safe from poachers (people who hunt animals illegally).

Sharing the Land:  In some areas, tigers and people share the land.  It’s like having a friendly neighbour!  As long as everyone respects each other, it can work.

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India’s success story shows us that even in a crowded world, humans and animals can live together.  It proves that when we care for our planet and work together, amazing things can happen.  So, next time you see a picture of a tiger, remember this incredible comeback story and how India is helping these magnificent animals roar back to life!

Did You Know?

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies tigers an endangered species. An endangered animal is one that’s at very high risk of extinction in the wild.

Also Watch full video Tiger Is The Largest Wild Cat In The World

WWF: WildLife In Danger

Living Planet Report (“Report”) is a report which is published by the World Wildlife Foundation (“WWF”) every two years. Experts from all over the world use the Living Planet index to monitor the health of the Earth and the animals. It tracks the population sizes of vertebrates like mammals, birds, reptiles and fish. It also checks if the population of animals is increasing or decreasing, and tries to understand the reasons behind the same, along with giving solutions. The Living Planet Index 2024 has covered the period from 1970 to 2020 and included data on 34,836 populations of 5,495 vertebrate species.

Finding Of The Latest Report 

  • Average wildlife populations have fallen by 73% in 50 years!
  • 85% drop has been reported for the population sizes of freshwater species.
  • Animal species in Latin America and the Caribbean have seen even more extreme average declines of 95% since 1970.
  • North America and Europe are responsible for nature loss in other countries because they import livestock that is grown in areas that were once wild.
  • The biggest threat to wildlife is loss of habitats. Other threats include invasive species, disease, climate change, and pollution.

The Warning!

The Report has warned that due to the rate of decline of animal species, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, and melting of the polar ice caps in Antarctica, the Earth is fast approaching a tipping point. This could impact food security and livelihoods across the world and even loss of healthy ecosystems across the world. The WWF has called the figures a “wake-up call” and warns in the report that “what happens in the next five years will determine the future of life on Earth”.

Word Check

Tipping points are points which, if reached, there’s no way of getting things back to the way they were.

Did You Know?

The Amazon rainforest is a very important habitat, as it is home to 10% of wildlife species on Earth. The Amazon rainforest converts carbon dioxide into oxygen and is therefore sometimes called the Earth’s Lungs. With respect to the Amazon rainforest, a tipping point could be reached if just 20–25% of the Amazon rainforest were destroyed! It is estimated 14–17% has already been deforested.

What Can Be Done?

The Report has given the following three important suggestions regarding what countries around the world need to do now: 

  1. Transform food production – Currently, the food production INDIAMART system of the world uses 40% of the Earth’s habitable land. This is causing habitat loss, as forests and grasslands are being converted into farmland. The countries need to find more nature-friendly methods of farming nutritious food for the world to eat
  1. Transform finance – The Report has recommended that less money should be invested in environmentally-harmful activities and more into things that help restore nature.
  1. Moving to clean energy – We need to stop greenhouse emissions by stopping the use of fossil fuels. The countries need to use more renewable forms of energy like solar and wind.

The Living Planet Report On India

The Report states that keeping in mind the global demand for food production by 2050, India’s food consumption pattern is the most climate-friendly among G20 nations. The Report has highlighted that India’s diet is the least harmful to the environment. If all countries adopted India’s consumption patterns, the world would require less than one Earth to support food production by 2050, making it a model for sustainability. On the other hand, the Report has also stated that countries like Argentina, Australia, and the US have the least sustainable pattern, with respect to their diet and food choices. 

The Report has recommended that people should eat a more sustainable diet, which would reduce the amount of land needed to produce food. The researchers have said that achieving a healthy and nutritious diet will be heavily influenced by local cultural traditions, individual choice, and available food. The Report has praised India’s National Millet Campaign for promoting climate-resilient grains, such as millets, “In some countries, promoting traditional foods will be an important lever to shift diets. For example, the National Millett Campaign in India is designed to increase national consumption of this ancient grain, which is good for health and highly resilient in the face of climate change”.

Word Check

G20 is a club of countries who meet every year to discuss plans for the world economy. G20 is made up of 19 of the world’s largest economies plus a representative from the European Union.

Could The Tasmanian Tiger Come Back From Extinction?

An American company called Colossal (who are also trying to bring back the Woolly mammoth and Dodo from extinction) have teamed up with Australian scientists from the University of Melbourne to try to find a way to bring the Tasmanian tiger back. Their goal is to develop an animal that is as close to the Tasmanian tiger as possible, by using DNA and gene-editing techniques. In a thrilling discovery, the scientists had found part of a Tasmanian tiger, which had been preserved for around 108 years, in a museum. From this they were able to take a very high-quality sample of the animal’s DNA and RNA molecules. 

These samples are only missing around 45 pieces of information, out of around three billion pieces in total – giving them a far more complete ‘blueprint’ to help make the Tasmanian Tiger. The scientists will then use gene-editing techniques, to take the cells of animals that exist today who have very similar DNA to the Tasmanian tiger, to fill in the missing information gaps. They say the process could take around three to five years. They also know that the new creature would not be 100% a Tasmanian tiger, but would be “more than 99.9% accurate”.

What was the Tasmanian Tiger?

Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine was a wolf-like carnivorous marsupi al. It was about the size of a large dog, who once used to roam the forests of Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania. The last known Tasmanian tiger died in Hobart zoo in 1936, with the rest of the species hunted to extinction.

Do you think it is a good idea to bring back animals from extinction? Can you think of some ways in when such experiments could impact the world? __________________________

Polar Bears In Endanger

Scientists have warned that the polar bears are getting sick more often as the Arctic temperatures are rising due to global warming. The scientists looked at blood samples of polar bears living between Alaska and Russia over a period of 30 years. They found that today polar bears face a bigger risk of contracting viruses, bacteria, and parasites that they were less likely to contract just 30 years ago. The research has further said that the polar bears are also facing a risk of getting many new diseases, which they did not face before. This is because they are spending more time on land due to melting ice.

Key polar bear facts

  • There are about 26,000 polar bears left in the world, with the majority in Canada.
  • They are also found in the US, Russia, Greenland, and Norway. Climate change is a key factor in their decline.
  • Polar bears are listed as Vulnerable on the Red List by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

World’s First Sabre-Toothed Cat Mummy Discovered

In 2020, a mummy of a 35,000-year-old sabre-toothed cat was discovered by chance by a group of explorers looking for mammoth tusks in eastern Siberia. This was the first time ever that a sabre-toothed cats’ mummy was found with its fur intact, allowing scientists to learn more about its muscles, skin, and fur. Prior to this discovery, scientists only knew about these big cats through skeletons. The three-week old kitten was found frozen in the permafrost near the Badyarikha River in Siberia. Scientists say that finding mummified mammals from that period in history is very rare. By studying the mummy with CT scans, the researchers were able to identify it as a Homotherium saber-toothed cat.

Homotherium was the last kind of saber-toothed cat known to have existed. 

Homotherium adults were about the size of a lion, but thinner, and good at running long distances.

What was the Sabre-Tooth Cat?

Sabre-toothed cats were large meat-eating mammals that lived thousands of years ago. This top predator lived in the prehistoric world after the dinosaurs died out. They have been named sabre-toothed cats because of their long, swordlike canine teeth. They died out around the end of the last Ice Age.

Word Check

Permafrost is a layer of ground in Arctic and Antarctic areas that remains frozen. Due to climate change, areas of permafrost are thawing, revealing secrets long buried and frozen.

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