Tigers4Ever Giving wild tigers a wild future

Photo collage - Tigers, Patrollers & Equipment
Tigers, Patrollers & Equipment

Thank you for your incredible support for our Anti-Poaching Patrols over the first few months of this project. We couldn’t have achieved what we have done without you! These are incredibly testing times for many of you, as the festive season begins amidst a cost of living crisis and as we all try to recover in a post-pandemic world. Your generosity helped us to keep over 400 patrollers dry during the monsoon season, provide powerful flashlights for patrollers at camps without electricity and a complete snake capture, rescue and relocate kit which will save the lives of many people as well as snakes. Most recently, your kind donations are helping us to provide essential warm winter jackets for some of the brave men and women who risk their lives to keep wild tigers safe.

Winter cold is here

During one of the strangest monsoon seasons since Tigers4Ever was founded, we discovered that almost all the waterproof clothing we had previously provided had worn out and needed replacing. More than 1000 brave men and women patrollers urgently needed waterproof clothing and boots to enable them to protect wild tigers in torrential monsoon rains. We asked for your help, and your amazing response meant that 400 patrollers received new waterproof jackets and trousers, and knee length waterproof boots which did more than just keep their feet dry; they protected the patrollers against fatal snake bites too! 600 brave patrollers still need waterproofs before the next monsoon rains, but now all the patrollers have a more urgent need.

Another cold winter is here already, recent early morning and night time temperatures have dipped as low as 2°C (35°F), 5°C (12°F) lower than the average for this time of year. This cold weather had a big impact on our patrols too; the warm jackets, boots and thick socks we provided in the past are not enough to cope with the freezing temperatures which are in Bandhavgarh now. With your help, we started to get new thicker and warmer jackets 2 months ago. We needed more than 1000 warm jackets and so far we’ve managed to provide them for 150 anti-poaching patrollers who are struggling to cope with the biting cold whilst on their night and early morning foot patrols. Sadly, it’s not enough! We’ve just received an offline donation which will help us to provide 50 more warm jackets, but still 800 brave men and women patrollers are struggling without them.

We urgently need to raise an extra £16000 ($19570) to ensure that every patroller can keep wild tigers safe as the freezing temperatures set in! Without these vital warm jackets, we won’t be able to patrol the same distances as the temperature falls. Our greatest fear is that this will leave wild tigers and their cubs vulnerable to poachers’ snares and traps. It is hard to describe the effects of cold on our brave patrols, but I will try: If you are northern Europe, or the Northern US states and Canada – imagine walking outside on a December morning in just a T-shirt and summer trousers and staying put outside like that for 12 hours!. I’m guessing that many of you would have gone inside or put a coat on long before the first hour was up, let alone 12 hours? I hope that helps?

This is why we can’t expect the patrollers to stay outside all night in the freezing cold either. If possible 2 patrollers will try to share one warm jacket (one day shift/one night shift) but this can’t be a long term solution as the colder temperatures persist for longer each day. If you can help, each heavy duty warm winter jacket costs just £20 ($25) https://goto.gg/56553 and will not only keep a patroller protecting wild tigers for 12 hours per day but will provide much needed employment for up to 4 people living with wild tigers too. Vital employment which helps to prevent others from becoming a teacher too!

What else are we doing to help?

We are keeping our patrols trebled over the festive period to counter the increased risk of poaching at this time of year. We’re also trying to complete work at two more permanent wildlife waterholes in the Kithauli-Biruhli buffer forest in the next couple of weeks. Once complete, these waterholes will bring the total number of Tigers4Ever waterholes to 14, reducing the pressure on human water resources and thus reducing human-wildlife conflict. Our waterholes already provide year round water for more than two thirds of Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers and their prey. You can read the latest report for our waterholes project here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-for-bandhavgarhs-tigers/reports/?subid=202182.

With the cold winter months ahead, we urgently need your help to provide a further 800 warm winter jackets so patrolling can continue on the coldest days and nights. To equip each patroller with a warm winter jacket we need another £16000 ($19570) so that the brave men and women who risk their lives each day to keep wild tigers safe can keep going in the cold. Any help you can give will be most welcome: https://goto.gg/56553. Even the smallest donation will be a huge help in these difficult times. Plus if you can donate online on Giving Tuesday – November 29, 2022 your donation will receive a matched bonus donation from a share of $1.2 million throughout the day. Definitely a good reason to help #MoveAMillion for wild tigers we think!

Making a Difference

With your continued support, we can cover an extra 1000 km (624 miles) of wild tiger territory per month with our increased patrols, in the cold weather conditions too, without warm jackets this may reduce! It is vital to ensure sufficient time to search for snares; traps and signs of poisoners around forest areas where human encroachment is widespread; and around the periphery of villages where crop raiding and livestock killing is rife. Increased patrolling helps us to curb human encroachment into wild tigers’ territories, and allows us to provide safety advice for those trying to protect their crops and livestock from wandering elephants and tigers respectively.

With more than 60 tiger cubs born since the start of the pandemic, we have many more wild tigers to keep safe now. So we still need your help. Your gift today, however large or small can make a huge difference as to whether Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers can survive these unprecedented threats:

  • A gift of £20 ($25) will provide a warm jacket for an anti-poaching patroller
  • A gift of £100 ($125) will provide warm jackets from a team of patrollers enabling them to cover 125km (78 miles) of wild tiger territory in a day
  • A monthly gift of £12 (US$15) per month will help us to provide an anti-poaching patroller’s essential equipment for a year.

Making your Gift Count Twice

Your new online monthly gift of £12 (US$15) per month won’t just help us to provide an anti-poaching patroller’s essential equipment for a year; it will also qualify for a 100% match bonus on the first donation amount if you keep donating for 4 months or longer. That means when you donate at £12 (US$15) monthly in month 4 we will receive an extra £12 (US$15) from GlobalGiving to help us save wild tigers. Thus there has never been a better time to start a new monthly donation than now. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/protecting-tiger-protectors/?show=recurring).

Without our help, we know that more wild tigers will die; and more humans will be mauled or killed due to encroachment or human-tiger conflict. Sadly, with every human life lost comes another threat to the wild tiger’s survival in the form of retaliation; thus we must protect both if we are to ensure that wild tigers can have a wild future.

Please don’t hesitate if you can help, your donation can be the difference between life and death for a wild tiger, as it helps to keep our patrol going when it is most needed. Every tiger and every tiger cub counts. Thank you for making our fight against poachers, the changing climate and human-animal conflict possible. (https://goto.gg/56553).

Take a look at our video on the Tigers4Ever YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/LRcGmZYfbZw

Photo collage - Tigers, Tigers4Ever Patrollers and Equipment.  Main image bottom right is a wild royal Bengal tigress with four young cubs sitting in a seasonal waterhole
Tigers, Tigers4Ever Patrollers and Equipment

Similar Posts