PHNOM TAMAO WILDLIFE RESCUE CENTER, CAMBODIA, NOVEMBER 2015
They told me he was not the most beautiful. I chose him because he loved his keeper, Nick Marx the tiger whisperer. Nick didn’t think Areang would collaborate. The park was big enough that he could easily shy away. The installation fragile enough he could destroy it with the swipe of his paw. For 30 minutes he became the guardian of the TimeShrine and gifted me with the most incredible collaboration. His eyes stronger than any of my words. All tigers are beautiful.
More tigers live now in cages than in the wild. They are being farmed, butchered, sold and commoditized.
A DEEPER LOOK
The sixth mass extinction isn’t a future problem – it’s already happening right now, much faster than previously expected. Human beings have already wiped out hundreds of species and have driven many more to the brink of extinction through the illegal trafficking of wildlife, pollution, habitat destruction and the use of toxic substances.
Today, around a million species are at risk of extinction, and for many of them, this has happened only in recent decades.
The tiger, whose scientific name is “Panthera tigris”, is the largest living feline. It was once found throughout central, eastern and southern Asia, but over the last 100 years the tiger has lost over 93% of its territory and now survives only in populations scattered in 13 countries.
Over the course of the last century, the tiger population has plummeted from 100,000 to around 3,500. The populations in south-eastern Asia, in particular, have drastically collapsed.
The main threats to tigers are poaching for use of their body parts in traditional medicines; the loss and fragmentation of their habitat; and slayings in retaliation for attacks on livestock.
According to some estimates, today more tigers live in cages than in the wild. They’re being farmed, butchered, sold and commoditized.