FlamingText

Being a Sex Symbol is Sometimes Overrated

  I still remember seeing the tiger in the zoo. I've seen other tigers in other zoos before and since, but I imagine that this is the one that will stick in my mind when I think of the word "tiger" from now on. It was a beautiful late spring day in Ohio and the sun was shining. He was out pacing the length and breadth of his enclosure, back and forth across that same twenty by twenty stretch of molded concrete "rocks" surrounded by a deep moat and high concrete walls that sloped up to a smooth ridge topped with some low bushes and a three-foot high railing. Here visitors could lean over and get a good long look at the greatest of the great cats.

  And so there I was leaning against the railing watching him. Tigers have always been one of my favorites but since they spend so much time sleeping on a lot of my prior visits I had stopped by the tiger enclosure only to find that they were sequestered in some barely-visible shady corner, napping. This tiger was awake all right, in fact looking more than a little restless, which stands to reason. The enclosure was bigger than most houses I've lived in but obviously to him it might as well have been a birdcage. I made eye contact with him, staring into this big fiery yellow cat's eye while he stared back at me and my heart actually jumped as a moment of mutual recognition passed between us and I imagined that I could hear the thoughts running through his mind:
"Oh man I bet I could almost make it if I could just get a running start. .."

Maybe it was his way of counting coup, letting me know that, were we to meet in any circumstances other than these, the balance of power between us would be very different indeed.

  According to people who know these things, there seems to be a pretty strong likelihood that I'll outlive the entire tiger species, at least the wild variety. The biggest threat to their continued existence is habitat loss. Tigers require a lot of range and human development in South Asia is expanding rapidly. It's not just a matter of preserving large enough stretches of land for them to hunt, but the ranges of many different tigers must overlap sufficiently to allow for a large enough gene pool to keep the species healthy. As the burgeoning economies in the region continue to push development further and further outward, it seems probable that one day soon the unchecked growth of the "Asian Tiger" could spell the end of the Asian tiger.

  Of course the other big threat is poaching, which is driven in large part by the fact that tiger penises are widely believed to possess special virility-enhancing properties. Like rhino horns, the fact that they are increasingly hard to obtain only serves to magnify their mystique and therefore heighten their value on the black market. As any avid user of the internet can attest, there is apparently a never-ending demand for Masculinity Enhancements of all varieties, and one can easily see how one as expensive, rare and esoteric as tiger penis might attract a great deal of interest from certain quarters. Such is the law of supply and demand. Not only are tiger penises more valuable than, say, opossum penises due to their relative scarcity, but the chances of a would-be customer already having tried that particular cure and found it wanting are very small. Almost infinitesimally small, one might say.

  While I have no reason to believe that the loss of this particular species is any more likely to spell disaster for the whole global ecosystem than the loss of some species of Amazonian fern that nobody's ever heard of, I nevertheless feel a great sentimental attachment to tigers that does not extend to similarly endangered species of fern or lichen. I realize that the tiger that I encountered that day in the zoo could hardly be called a tiger at all -- more like the ghost of a tiger. And I further realize that if a real tiger means a tiger that is in its natural environment going about the everyday business of being a tiger, then I have no actual desire to see a real tiger, because seeing one would mean that something had gone very wrong. Neither do I wish to see a real grizzly or a real polar bear. For now I would prefer to watch them on TV.

  But I like living in a world where I know that there are tigers. It's not just that they are beautiful, which they are, but I also have always enjoyed the fact that there are still animals around that can knock us right off our perch on top of the food chain, drag us off into the jungle and eat us. It gives me a warm feeling inside. I don't know why, it just does.

Posted by flamingbanjo at May 5, 2005 12:51 PM