Save the Tiger, Save the World!

As I was creating a holiday card for family and friends this morning, it struck me how easy it would be for me to post it here. Especially since it has an underlying message of conservation that is near and dear to my heart as a wildlife biologist! This is a glimpse at a brief moment of intimacy between a mother Sumatran tiger and her cub, a scene which has played out thousands of times in the wild, but one which is now more commonly found in captivity than in the wild. This particular mother-cub pair are living at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. I find it a sad badge of conservation that it is estimated that there are 4 times as many tigers in captivity as in the wilds of Asia and Russia. Save the tiger, save the world.