“Do not disturb us, we want safe zone to survive,” read a placard with a cardboard cut-out of a tiger at a token tigers’ rally formed to press home the demand of saving the biggest species of the cat family from extinction.
Some tiger lovers formed a human chain at the rally holding some placards with cardboard cut-out of tigers.
Green Belt Trust organised the unique rally in front of the National Press Club in the city yesterday.
Two schoolgirls who were passing by the press club shouted and laughed seeing the cardboard cut-out of tigers.
Hearing the shouting, one participant of the human chain said, “If we do not take necessary steps right now to save the tigers, only after a few years our next generation would just learn about tigers just seeing placards like this that we are holding now.”
Some other placards at the human chain said ‘make Sundarbans liveable for us’, ‘save nature, save tigers’, ‘now 400 what tomorrow.’
According to a study, the number of tigers was 100,000 in 1900 but now the number is only 3,700 and experts think that tigers might be extinct by the next century.
A paper was given to the journalists by the organisers that said the density of Bengal Tigers in the Sundarbans is still the highest in the world with only 440 tigers though the number is decreasing day by day.
The speakers at the human chain said the number of Bengal Tigers should be doubled within the next decades and the habitat of the tigers should be given the highest priority and maintained and conserved properly.
They also suggested increasing the extent of punishment for hunting tigers and other wild animals under the wildlife protection act.
The human chain was addressed, among others, by Dhaka University Professor Anwarul Islam, Nirapod Development Foundation Chairman Ibnul Syed Rana, member secretary of Unnayan Dhara Trust Aminur Rasul, Citizen’s Rights Movement Secretary General Tusher Rehman and Greenbelt Trust Director Jasim Khatabi.
Courtesy of The Daily Star