How Member Jungle Steps Lightly On The Planet: Tiger Adoption

As a kid, I was obsessed with tigers. Like seriously obsessed; they were my favourite animals. I had a dozen tiger stuffed toys, including one of those massive lying-down tiger ones; I loved any movie with tigers, except Jungle Book, because I rooted for Shere Khan, and if I’m being honest, I still do. My boy had a point; Mowgli burnt down half the jungle. Basically, if it was tiger-themed, I was there.

When I was about 10, I ate tuna sandwiches for lunch every day for an entire school year because that was Hobbes' (the tiger in Calvin and Hobbes) favourite food. Now, I cannot stand the smell of canned tuna, as I seemingly overdosed on it.

 

 

My childhood obsession with tigers has since mellowed into a healthy admiration for them. Though I will admit that I do have a tiger tattoo, well, it’s a tattoo of Calvin and Hobbes, but I think that counts. 

By coincidence, I have ended up working for a company whose logo is a tiger and whose lobby has large tiger cutouts, which I absolutely love. The reason I’m banging on about tigers today, though, is because (as you will know from the title) Member Jungle has just adopted a Tiger through the WWF, and I couldn’t be happier. 

Previously, I have talked about all the animals that Member Jungle has adopted. Member Jungle sponsors endangered animals to help ensure their protection, fund breeding programs, and ensure these wonderful creatures keep living wild and free. These animals include Tasmanian Devils, Koalas, Platypuses, Manning River Turtles, and Eastern Quolls. As of July 2024, Member Jungle has officially adopted a Tiger, which we have named Oz after AusTiger Hosting, our green web hosting business.
 

Why Tigers Need To Be Adopted

Tigers, as we know them today, evolved around 2 million years ago and were widespread throughout Asia and Eastern Europe, ranging from as far West as the Black Sea to as far North as Siberia and as far South as Indonesia. By 2010, barely 3,000 wild tigers had been thought to exist in a fraction of their former range due to hunting, deforestation, and conflict with humans. Three of the eight known tiger subspecies have gone extinct in the past century.

Thanks to dedicated conservationists and reserves, the population of wild tigers has increased slightly to just over 5,000. However, they are still in desperate need of help unless we lose them forever. 

The money from tiger adoptions via the WWF goes to preserving tiger habitats, monitoring tigers and their prey’s movements and populations, lobbying governments whose countries have tigers to expand the protection of tigers and stopping the tiger trade. You can read all about it in detail on the WWF website here WWF Tiger. 

I know a lot of that is quite sad, but here is a fun tiger fact to make up for it. The famous MGM logo of a lion roaring started out as a real lion roar, but since the 1980s, it has actually been dubbed over with a tiger’s roar. Real lion roars sound more like extremely loud groans. In fact, tigers are often the sound behind most bears you see in movies. Bears also don’t roar or snarl like they do in movies, so they dub in the sound of tigers snarling and roaring. 

You can see the Lion MGM Logo here, and you can see the tiger one that has been used since 1982 Tiger MGM Logo here. Since 2021, the MGM logo has gone fully digital but has still kept its tiger vocals. 
 

 

Why Member Jungle Adopted A Tiger Through The WWF

As mentioned, Member Jungle has been adopting animals for years to help support endangered animal conservation. This is a part of our philosophy of stepping lightly on the planet. To do this, we power our office with solar energy, use only environmentally friendly and recycled cleaning products in the office, and all the club websites we host are powered by 100% renewable energy and a lot more.  

To find out more about this, please visit Green Membership Management: Help Your Club, Help The Planet.

Oz, the tiger, is the first non-native Australian animal that Member Jungle has adopted, and we did this for a few reasons. Firstly, just because an animal isn't Australian doesn't mean we shouldn't do our bit to help it. Secondly, and quite obviously, it's the Member Jungle logo. It makes a lot of sense for us to sponsor the conservation of an animal whose image we use all the time. Thirdly, tigers are amazing. Who wouldn't want to help them?

 

 

Finally, I'm going to throw out some quick fun tiger facts that have been rattling around my head since childhood. I knew they'd be useful eventually. 

• Different populations of tigers have evolved to live in temperatures ranging from -40c to 40c.
• Tigers' closest living relatives are Snow Leopards.
   
• Smilodon or Saber-tooth tigers, as they are commonly called, are not tigers or closely related to current big cats, with their evolution diverging around 20 million years ago. 
   
• Tigers have been clocked running up to 65km/h.
   
• Tigers have a vertical jump of nearly five meters and a horizontal one of over seven.
   
• Tigers have the 7th highest bite force of any animal at 1050 pounds per square inch, nearly double that of a Great White Shark. 
   
• Tigers have antiseptic saliva. 
   
• Tigers have reportedly learnt to hunt by mimicry, mimicking the sounds of other animals to lure them into ambushes
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• Tigers' stripes help break up their outline, making them look less like a single solid object and making them harder to spot.
   
• Most mammals and a small proportion of humans are red-green colour-blind, making tigers' orange completely disappear. 

 

Below, you can see an example of this. On the left is a regular picture of a tiger, and on the right is a picture of a tiger as seen by someone with Red-Green colour blindness or Deuteranomaly. 

 

 

If you are red-green colour blind, I apologise for making the most useless comparison image. For anyone who suddenly realised they are red-green colour blind, at least it was amongst friends. 

How You Can Help Tigers

If I haven't already made it abundantly clear, I think tigers are incredible creatures. Yet in the last 100 years, we humans have killed nearly 100,000 tigers, pushed three subspecies to extinction and have left the remaining five on the brink of extinction. Each year, an estimated 150 tigers are killed by poachers, and many more die due to human deforestation and the destruction of the little habitat they have left.  

Below is an image of how tigers’ habitat has shrunk over the last century and a bit. 

 

 

As things stand, Shere Khan was right: humans are bad and will destroy everything. Though we still have time to prove him wrong. Tigers worldwide are in desperate need of help before it is too late, and you can do your bit by sponsoring, adopting and donating to tiger conservation via organisations like the WWF. See Adopt A Tiger on the WWF website for more information. 

Plus, depending on which adoption package you choose, you can get an awesome little gift bundle along with your adoption, which makes this an awesome Christmas or birthday present for someone you love. 

Below is just a sneak peak at some of the stuff that came in our gift bundle from the WWF. 

 

Where To Next?

I hope you enjoyed that and learned something interesting. I also hope it wasn’t too preachy; this is just something I’m passionate about. 

As I already said, visit the WWF website to learn how you can help tigers and many other endangered animals in need. 

To see all the other animals Member Jungle has adopted, check out How Member Jungle Steps Lightly On The Planet: Animal Adoptions.