letter from a young mutts fan (and world traveler!)
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| Julia with Tommy, a beloved local street dog who lives outside of Ranthambhore. Tommy is famous for having survived a very serious leopard
attack. |
Hi Mutts fans,
My name is Julia, I’m 10 years old, and I live in New York City. Shtinky Puddin’ is one of my favorite Mutts characters because he’s a tiger cat, and he wants to save tigers! In January 2005 I went to a tiger reserve in northwest India called Ranthambhore National Park. I went there last year too, and had a great time with my mom and dad. My mom works on tiger conservation with an organization called Sanctuary Asia.
Part of the excitement of going to a national park in India is the possibility of seeing a tiger in the wild. Last year I saw four tigers (and heard one!), but this year I didn’t see any. We saw many other animals that were interesting and beautiful, but this time, we weren’t lucky enough to see a tiger.
Here’s what we did see! Many black-tailed mongooses; a honey badger which is very rare, dashing across the road in front of our jeep; many, many crocodiles, especially on our first day; many chital and sambar deer (the chital fawns are the sweetest things you’ve ever seen, the fur on their backs is all fuzzy, and they have spots like Bambi); the Indian gazelle, called the chinkara; and crazy langur monkeys that crashed around in the trees as we drove underneath. The baby langurs were always clinging to their mothers’ bellies, hanging on for dear life.
Also there were wild boar (they’re my favorite!) that snuffled around in the dirt, making cute sounds, and several nilgai, also known as the blue bull. Nilgai look a bit like deer, but they’re really huge antelopes. We saw many different kinds of birds, including Indian treepies, the jungle babbler (treepies and babblers liked to eat cracker crumbs out of my hand), green parakeets, kingfishers, and spotted owlets, that looked like little old wise men.
Every day, we saw pugmarks (tiger paw prints) and heard the alarms calls of sambar and langurs, so we knew there was always a tiger around. When I visit Ranthambhore, the feeling I have about the possibility of seeing a tiger is always excitement, and just plain wanting it to happen. I never feel scared or jumpy, because tigers, to me, and to my mom, are calm, and smooth, and just there. When I saw tigers last year, they didn’t have much interest in us, sometimes they would look around and we would be watching and pointing and talking in low voices, but they wouldn’t do anything. Probably they have more important things to think about than tourists!
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| Julia with Fateh Singh Rathore, retired Field Director of Ranthambhore National Park, looking at the January 2005 issue of Sanctuary Cub magazine. |
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| Julia feeds an Indian treepie in Ranthambhore National Park. |
Do you wonder why I care about tigers? I sometimes have the feeling that animals are better listeners than people, more calm. This is hard to explain, but like my dog and cats at home, I think that’s what tigers are like--that they have that smooth understanding, that power to make you feel better about things. I wouldn’t want to have a tiger as a pet, though. I feel that they make a difference to the world. And they’ll keep making a difference to the world if people let them, if people don’t hunt them and give them enough space. I like to think that there are wild tigers roaming around the forest in Ranthambhore, while I’m sitting here typing this. It makes the world seem better; it’s a nice feeling.
If you’re wondering what you can do to help save tigers, here are a few ideas:
- Learn and study as much as you can about tigers. Get information out of a good magazine or website (with accurate facts)
— you should always double check what you see.
- Write a petition with the facts about some tiger crisis, get a lot of your friends’ signatures on it, and send it to the president of the United States and the prime minister of India.
- Write your own letter to country leaders, asking them to help save tigers.
- Don’t visit zoos and circuses that have or use animals like tigers and elephants. These animals should not be used for entertainment, they are only happy in the wild.
- Save water and electricity and don’t buy too much stuff—it might be hard to believe, but how we live in America affects tigers far way in India.
- Saving tigers requires no special effort—it can just be part of who you are, and the best part is, you can share that with other people!
While I was in India and now that I’m back home, I’m a little worried about tigers. There aren’t enough forests for them to live in, and they’re being killed (poached) for their bones and other body parts, which are used in traditional medicines that don’t actually help anyone. The tiger is endangered, but with your help, we can save it and many other endangered animals. You might like to visit my favorite tiger websites: 5tigers.org and kidsfortigers.org.
Julia W., New York City
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