Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

I’d like to introduce you to someone. Her name is Moharli and she lives in Maharashtra, in central India. It’s a beautiful, densely forested area, with life-giving streams and dramatic hills that inspired Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book.

Like me, Moharli has four children. Like me, she has three sons and a daughter. A big responsibility. Like many youngsters they’re playful and very inquisitive. Thankfully they are strong and healthy. But they live under a shadow. Every single day, their lives are under threat. Every day, they are in deadly danger.

For Moharli is a tiger. Her beauty is mesmerising. Her power is awe-inspiring. But she has no defence against well-armed poachers. She would die to protect her cubs. But there’s nothing she can do to stop the poachers’ guns, snares and poison.

And make no mistake. They are after her. Poachers want to kill Moharli and her family. They want to skin each one of them for their magnificent fur. Unbelievably, wearing tiger fur is considered by some to be a symbol of wealth and power.

And that’s not all. Poachers want to butcher the entire family for their bones and other body parts. There is a voracious, seemingly insatiable black market for their use in traditional Chinese medicine. Some people mistakenly believe tiger parts can cure illness, even though the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies has emphatically spoken out against their use.

But it’s not only poachers. Moharli’s forest home is also under threat. Trees are cut down for the logging industry. Her habitat is destroyed for agriculture, mines and dams. Less forest means less prey. It’s harder for Moharli to hunt the food she and her cubs need - deer, wild pigs, birds and monkeys.

These are dark days for the magical tiger. This supreme hunter, perhaps the most spectacular predator on earth, faces an extreme crisis.

I can hardly believe it, but less than 3,500 remain in the wild. The largest population is in India, but fewer than 1,400 survive there. Over the last 100 years, 95% of tigers have been wiped out. They now occupy a mere 7% of their former range. In the last 50 years, three of the eight subspecies of tiger have become extinct.

Paradoxically, 2010 is a very special year. For a billion Chinese this is the Chinese Year of the Tiger. We ought to be celebrating their power and beauty. But how can we when wild tigers are on the brink of extinction?

This is truly an emergency, in every sense. Will the tiger disappear from the jungle forever? We can’t let this happen!

India’s Satpuda hills are a last stronghold for tigers. Here, in India’s largest remaining block of tiger habitat, Born Free is hard at work with local people and conservationists to secure a future for tigers. We’re supporting the brave men and women prepared to put their lives on the line to protect Moharli and her family, and Satpuda’s other tigers. We’re taking strong action to fight the illegal trade in tiger parts on every front. This report will tell you more.

Our vision is a safe future for Moharli and her cubs. A safe future for all India’s tigers. We want there to be double the number of wild tigers across Asia by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger. Ambitious, yes. But if we fail, our shame will haunt us and our children.

If you love tigers as I do, if they stir your imagination and touch your heart, please, help our vision become a reality. Please make this your Year of the Tiger.

With my warmest wishes as always.

Virginia McKenna OBE
Born Free Founder & Trustee

PS I hope that you feel able to help us.

Photographs - TRACT, The Corbett Foundation