The other night, I had a dream that I was standing on a quayside on an island watching a raft bearing 50 Siberian Tigers coming in to dock.  They were coming to live on the island where they would be safe.  It wasn't such a suprising dream as I've recently been watching the excellent BBC series Lost Land of the Tiger, which tracked, over 3 consecutive nights, the progress of a vital expedition involved in a project to save tigers from extinction.  Indian Tigers in this instance - there was no mention of their Siberian cousins.  The appalling facts are that, without major intervention, tigers in the wild may become extinct within the next two decades - and even typing that sentence makes me want to cry.  To think that this may happen in my lifetime is upsetting beyond words.  In the last century, these biggest and most beautiful of the big cats have gone from being widespread across the Asian subcontinent to surviving in tiny, unconnected pockets where inbreeding is adding to the crisis by weakening the gene pool.  Hunting and poaching for the Chinese medicine market has decimated the species.  Did you know that there were once 9 subspecies of tiger, 3 of which are now extinct?  All of those remaining are critically endangered.

The project featured on the BBC programme has been attempting to create a corridor across the hem of the Himalays in which tigers can roam freely and safely, and it is widely believed that this is the only sure way to safeguard the future of these beautiful creatures.  The trio of programmes featured the team's exploration of Bhutan, chasing down rumours of a tiger presence there, as the country had been the missing piece of the puzzle in the corridor.  To the huge joy and relief of the team, and I am sure of everyone watching, they did indeed find a significance tiger presence, and it seems that, thanks to Bhutan's remoteness and to the strong Buddhist conviction of its people, this may indeed prove the salvation of the species.

So anyway, that's why I dreamed about a raft of tigers.  And the reason why I watched the programme in the first place is because I've always had a thing about tigers (black panthers and snow leopards too, but especially tigers, and especially, especially Siberian Tigers).  There was a wildlife park near where I grew up which was home to both Indian and Siberian Tigers.  On one visit, finding myself alone in the woodlands where the Siberian Tigers lived, the neighbouring wolves began howling, and this in turn set off the tigers.  I shall never, ever forget the shivering, flesh-tingling exilaration of standing a few feet away from a roaring Siberian Tiger.  Nor shall I forget another visit where I stood for half and hour and more watching an Indian Tiger prowling along the fence a few feet from me, so close that I could smell its heady musk, so close I could count the hairs on its muzzle, so close I could see every beautiful, powerful line of this most magnificent of all creatures.

I have lived most of my life knowing, and fearing that I may live to see the extinction of tigers in the wild, and the hope offered by the team's findings on Lost Land of the Tiger is a precious thing.  It would be tragic beyond belief to lose tigers from this earth and I pray to whichever gods may be listening that they find a raft to that safe place of my dream.