Please join us tonight for our monthly program. Tonight's topic is a critical one...the conservation of tigers. If we cannot save our most charismatic species, what hope do other less "sexy" species have? Tonight we will discuss the efforts being made to conserve tigers in the wild:
Tigers: Can we Save Our Most Charismatic Species? with Peter Clyne, PhD of the Wildlife Conservation Society December 10, 7pm Wild tigers are down to a historic low of 3,200 compared to 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century. These 3,200 are now found in scattered fragments across tropical Asia and Russia. Of these fragments, only 42 of them are large enough to hold viable populations of tigers (defined as enough land to hold at least 25 breeding female tigers). Called Source Sites, these 42 fragments hold 60% of the remaining tigers. These Source Sites are the last realistic hope for wild tigers. But although it may sound bleak, the reality for tigers in most of these Source Sites is considerably more optimistic provided high-quality protection is given to them. Join us tonight as Dr. Clyne discusses the specifics of these tiger conservation efforts in these 25 Source Sites. Dr. Peter Clyne is an Assistant Director in the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Asia Program. Dr. Clyne’s hippie parents took him to rural India when he was 11 to live in an ashram. During his teens, he shuttled back and forth between India and the U.S., where he fell in love with southern Asia. His undergraduate degree is in South Asia regional studies. After college Clyne worked for an NGO teaching Hindi literacy to illiterate adults living in village India. After returning to the states, he decided to pursue a higher degree in biology. His PhD is in molecular neuroscience (on the sense of smell and taste) from Yale, and he did a post-doc in neuroscience (on synaptic architecture) at the University of California-San Francisco. An avid birdwatcher, Dr. Clyne joined WCS five years ago, working on conservation efforts in India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The program will be held at the Cold Spring Harbor Library. For more information on Huntington-Oyster Bay Audubon, please visit our website. Stella Miller "Conservation is sometimes perceived as stopping everything cold, as holding whooping cranes in higher esteem than people. It is up to science to spread the understanding that the choice is not between wild places or people, it is between a rich or an impoverished existence for Man." Thomas Lovejoy -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
