“Instead of expecting tigers to be cautious. Isn’t it logical that authorities must be cautious while planning roads and mitigation measures? – National Tiger ConVersation Authority (NTCA)
In America, sometimes a stray cat crosses the freeway. Sometimes a kitten is somehow stuck in the middle of a freeway and rescued (great work by the way). But in India, their version of the cat-on-highway takes on a whole new meaning. This gorgeous tiger approaches the motorway cautiously, looks around and then saunters onto it. There is no traffic (thankfully). The tiger elegantly leaps the central barrier and crosses the opposite part of the road to then retreat into the forests which are his home.
It occurred near Chorbahuli, near Nagpur (see map at base of page).
Careless Tiger Conservation or Big Business Wins
This little event captured on a smarphone highlights how building roads across wild cat habitats eventually destroys the cats. It fragments their habitat and in Florida, for instance, many Florida panthers (pumas) are killed on the roads. There are very few Florida pumas left so death on the road is unwelcome from a conservation point of view. The Bengal tiger (as is the tiger in the video) is also at a precarious point in its history as there are no more than about 3,500 on the entire planet. If a pregant mother is killed by a vehicle on this road it is a big loss to conservation.
When road crosses the forest, #tiger need to be extra cautious while crossing it. Video of tiger crossing National Highway near Nagpur. pic.twitter.com/fjW9YamX2a
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) July 9, 2019
Two More Comments
“Another invasion by humans. Soon there will be no tigers or elephants due to animal/human conflicts. And people, don’t forget the forest and tigers were there well before the humans came along to destroy their habitat.” – Veronic Holland on Twitter.
“This is terribly sad to see that man has completely disregarded that they have built a major road with barriers through a tiger corridor. Just total lunacy!!!” – Theresia J. Krotzky on Twitter.
All these comments are spot on. This nice video actually is about something not nice at all: the carving up of tiger habitat by governments building roads and commercial buildings because of unsustainable human population growth which inevitably leads to a decline in the population size of all wild animals living in the wild.
