Tiger Trust: 2010

Aaron Collins :The Tiger Trust program was an inspiring experience that helped me connect with the intelligent and cheerful children of India. I was able to interact with the children, see creative work the children had done in school, perform skits with the children, and most of all talk to the children, all with an environmental focus. I feel that the work we did with the children is very important in furthering the welfare of India’s environment, and the welfare of India’s people. The children were polite, respectful, and were genuinely delighted with our visit. Education is the first step in prevention, and informing tomorrow’s generation about today’s environmental problems is the first step in protecting India’s diverse, beautiful natural environment. The children particularly loved the interaction. I signed several autographs after performing the skit, and loved playing soccer with the children. I was a little upset about the trash leftover after the lunch provided for the children. Perhaps one educational presentation isn’t enough. It would be great to see environmental education implemented at the national level. Until we can prevent litter in India, we can’t save its environment.Elizabeth Crouch:Meeting the Children in Ranthambhore: Meeting the excited children at their school in Ranthambore was my favorite part of my trip to India. I have never before felt like such a celebrity! The children wanted our autographs and photographs. After complimenting the henna artwork on a little girl’s arm, she proceeded to “henna” me with a pen. The pictures of us are framed in my office now to remind me of the strong and warm spirited people I met in India. I felt truly honored when the children performed for us. The little girls had beautiful singing and outstanding dancing. This was the part of the trip that made me feel like I was from India! The little boys that spoke encouraged me with their talk of taking care of our world! The people were so welcoming that it made me feel like I was a part of this exotic land that was halfway around the world from my “home.” Finally, the play time in the afternoon gave me the opportunity to teach them about our “culture” and see how our play was similar even when the languages were different. It took the girls no time at all to catch on to “Ring around the Rosy” or “Duck-Duck-Goose.”Elliott Gleaton :On our second day there [Ranthambhore], we got to go out on a tiger drive with ~100 students from neighboring villages, and they got to see the tigress with us as well. I was really happy about that. Later, we got to do a skit for them, which they thoroughly enjoyed. We acted out a poaching that had occurred at the park the week before, and everyone involved said it was perfect, it didn’t go too far, but covered everything well. I’m glad that my idea came to fruition and was so well accepted. We got to play with the children later on a dirt field, with the sports equipment we had given them, including three Frisbees I brought. Also gave them three books, they got coloring books, crayons, pencils, and all kinds of small other things. There weren’t enough bags for everyone, which was stupid of the staff involved. I felt bad, but those students got even better presents. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip, we were signing hands and handing out phone numbers; hopefully we’ll be famous one day and make some of those kids rich later. I’ve never felt so famous before, but the kids were absolutely in love with us, and I’m sure they were 500 times happier than we were afterwards. That was a really great feeling.Melissa Hulbert:The Experience of a Lifetime The Tiger Trust assembly was informative and at the same time very entertaining. My favorite part of the assembly was getting to watch the young Indian girls perform their dances. However, the part I truly enjoyed was after the presentations and assembly when we got to talk and play with the children. Never before have I been so welcomed by a group of people. The sheer enthusiasm of the children brought a smile to not only my face but everyone around me. I got to play volleyball with a group of girls and I can honestly say that I haven’t had that much fun in quite awhile. Getting to spend the afternoon with the school children allowed me to remember that no matter what a person’s skin color, educational background, or nationality we all have the ability to come together as one and have fun with one another. The experience is one that I will not forget and truly brought a wonderful end to an unforgettable trip.Andrew LePorte:Tiger trust was an outstanding opportunity to interact with the future of tiger prevention and push for a world with an extroadinary population. I was extremely impressed with the speeches delievered and the songs performed in front of us. It was quite moving to see the kids in these schools speaking in English to us while expressing their concern for the tiger. It felt like I was part of something important. I had a blast performing my skit of the tigers that were poached only a week before. I sat with one of the kids during the ceremony and let him take pictures with my camera. I could tell it meant a lot to him knowing that this was perhaps the first time he held a camera like mine and took pictures. Playing soccer was also a lot of fun even though we played right after eating lunch. Overall I feel like the experience was very moving but I don’t know how much it impacted the children. After speaking of recycling, being clean, and protecting our environment I saw the ground littered with cups and garbage right after the program was finished. It was quite disheartening to see this happen. I sincerely hope that this program did have a strong impact for these children. I know it did for me!Iris Redwood-Sawyerr Spending the day with the local school children was easily one of my favorite days of the entire trip. I was truly impressed with their knowledge; they all wrote and spoke so well! While we may live on completely opposite sides of the world, we all share the same concerns for the environment and I was happy to share that with those children. It was however disappointing to see that after all the time we spent talking about not polluting and saving the earth, the courtyard area was full of trash after lunch. I really enjoyed playing different sports with the children as well. Overall the day spend with the local children was amazing and I hope that I can go it again someday.Reaction to the school children:Julia Snouck-Hurgronj:Going to visit the school children was one of my absolute favorite parts of the trip. It was really neat to see what they had to share with us, and it was exciting to share our experiences and knowledge with them. Despite the language barrier, we had so much fun talking to each other and playing games together. It was surprisingly easy to understand each other's meanings even though we didn't speak any Hindi, and they only spoke a little bit of English. I really had a wonderful time playing and teaching and learning, and I think those visits are one of the most important things that Clemson students do on this trip. Showing locals that live right next to the parks that people care about saving the tigers internationally is an important tool in encouraging them to care about the tigers.Jazmine Taylor:Our time with the village children was nice. I really hope they enjoyed the program that we had for them. They were absolutely wonderful with their speeches, singing and dancing. I was extremely impressed with the speeches in English and their English overall. It made me feel so bad when I could not understand what they were saying; it would have been nice to learn a little Hindi. The program was quite long with all of the translating! I feel bad that we did not have enough bags for all of the kids. I do wish that we had time to interact more the school children before rushing to eat and play sports; I feel like other than the sports we didn’t really get a chance to interact. I know with the volley ball only about 5 school children played. And it seemed with the soccer game that we were playing with some type of team. I suppose we should have asked them to teach us some of the games that they usually play.Kirtley Theisen :I absolutely loved the school visit and the tiger trust activities. The kids were so sweet and they made us feel very welcome. I loved being able to perform the short skit for them. It was such a great experience and the kids all seem so happy. Playing sports with the kids was a lot of fun too! I liked how sports in a way broke the language barrier between us because all sports are typically played by the same rules and through sports we were able to communicate. The only thing that wasn’t that great was the fact that after we just discussed saving the environment and keeping it clean, the kids through trash all over the ground and there were trashcans right outside. That was the only disappointment. The overall experience was amazing and I would love to do it again.Jessie Ulmer- I really enjoyed meeting the children and learning about their culture. It was so flattering that a lady brought her daughter to dance just because she read about the meeting in the local newspaper. All the girls were so proud to show us their culture through singing, dancing and skits. It was interesting to hear the children discuss what they want to do to help save the tigers and the environment. This event is so important because it educates the children on current problems and teaches them how they can take part in the solution to fix it. It is imperative that these children realize how easy it is to make a difference and know that every little bit helps. I enjoyed sharing our knowledge with the students. I was happy to get to give these children some presents. They are all so grateful for everything no matter how small or trivial. I had no idea that the students would be so warm and outgoing.Jennifer Walker I thought that visiting the school children was one of the best things that we did on this trip. I think that it really helped us to get another view of the children in India other than just seeing them begging in the train stations. I liked how the presentations went. It was really nice to see that even halfway across the world people are still focusing on the same goals that we are. I also really loved getting to play the games with the children. The only thing that I would change is the organization of everything. We did not know how many children were coming to the event until pretty much the night before. Even the day of we were hearing different numbers. This caused us to run out of gift bags to give to the children, which made me feel just awful. If we had had a concrete number we could have made more bags and not run out. It was also a little confusing at the event. We did not know when we were presenting, or what we were doing when we took a break in the middle, or what we were doing when we stopped for lunch. It was also pretty disappointing that right after the presentations all the trash from lunch was just everywhere.Hannah Woolbright :Being part of the Tiger Trust’s program for local children around Ranthambore Tiger Reserve was one of the most meaningful experiences in my life. Few international travelers get to take off the role of tourist to have real interactions with local people and for that interaction giving us a chance to influence young people for the better and spread such an importance message is priceless. It’s an experience I will never forget.

Behind rusted bars, a skeletal male tiger lies panting on the filthy concrete floor of his cage, covered in sores and untreated wounds. His once-fearsome body is so emaciated it is little more than a pitiful pile of fur and bones.

Death is surely a matter of days away and can only come as a welcome release. Wardens at the wildlife park in southwest China say, indifferently, that they do not expect him to see the start of the Year of the Tiger which began last Sunday.
'What can we do?' a female park official asks a small huddle of visitors with a sigh and a casual shrug. 'He's dying, of course, but we have to keep feeding him until he does. It's against the law to kill tigers.'
Dying breed: One of the emaciated tigers in a cage at the Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village in Guilin, China
Instead, it seems, they die slowly of neglect. In row after row of foul, cramped cages, more tigers lie alone, crippled and dying. One is hunched up against the side of its cage with its neck grotesquely deformed. Another, blinded in one eye, lies motionless.
This shabby, rundown park in Guilin - one of China's main tourist cities - is home to the world's biggest single collection of tigers. Yet it is never included on foreigners' tour itineraries.
For here, 1,500 captive tigers - around half as many as there are thought to be remaining in the wild - live out miserable lives in squalid conditions.
Each tiger costs around £6 a day to feed, and it is easy to see that the small clusters of visitors paying £7.50 each to wander around the cages and watch bizarre animal shows cannot possibly cover even the cost of food for the vast park.
The reason is the tigers, mostly Siberian, are far more valuable dead than alive.
For a 55lb pile of bones from a single tiger can be worth up to £225,000. There is a hugely lucrative trade in the skeletons at the Guilin park.
Dead tigers are driven 200 miles from the park, officially called the Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village, to a huge subterranean complex where their fur is stripped from their carcasses and their bones collected to make tiger wine that can sell for £185 a bottle.
So for the park, where the tigers are bred for their bones, every year is the Year of the Tiger, and conservationists fear that the vile trade could be helping push some species of wild big cat into extinction.
On paper, China has signed international wildlife treaties that ban all trade in tiger body parts and claims to have outlawed the industry.
In reality, Xiongshen and other parks like it operate in a grey area of the law, using the bones of animals that have died naturally in captivity to produce 'medicinal' wine, apparently with the government's blessing.
Tigers have been used in Chinese traditional medicine for centuries. Their eyeballs are used to treat epilepsy, their bile to stop convulsions, their whiskers to sooth toothache and their penises as a potent sexual tonic.
The most valuable parts, however, are the bones, which are used to make wine that is said to cure rheumatism and arthritis, and prolong life.
Despite its rapid modernisation, the use of traditional medicine in China has increased rather than declined because more people can afford exotic treatmentsRead more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252500/Exposed-Dark-secret-farm-tigers-bodies-plundered-make-185-wine.html#ixzz0n1eJfLoK

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