Award-winning photographer Steve Winter documents the trail of disappearance of Asian Tigers in India, Sumatra, and Thailand."
Bio
Steve Winter
Steve Winter has been stalked by jaguars in Brazil, charged by a
grizzly in Siberia, and trapped in quicksand in the world's largest
tiger reserve in Myanmar. He's flown over erupting volcanoes and visited
isolated villages where residents had never before seen a blond
foreigner - or a camera.
Growing up in Indiana, Winter dreamed of traveling the world as a photographer for National Geographic.
His first camera was a gift from his father on his seventh birthday.
Over the next few years, Winter's dad taught him the basics of
photography.
After graduating from the Academy of Art and the
University of San Francisco, Winter signed on as a photojournalist for
Black Star Photo Agency. Since then, he has produced stories for GEO, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Natural History, Audubon, BusinessWeek, Scientific American, and Stern,
among other publications. His nonprofit and commercial clients include
UNICEF, Merck Pharmaceuticals, Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, and
others.
In 1991, Winter began shooting for the National Geographic Society. He has covered many subjects for National Geographic
magazine, including Cuba, Russia's giant Kamchatka bears, tigers in
Myanmar's Hukawng Valley, and life along Myanmar's Irrawaddy River.
Winter lives with his wife, son, and pets in New Jersey.
Reddish tan, striped great cat (Panthera tigris) of forests, grasslands, and swamps in eastern Russia, South Asia, Sumatra, and a few small parts of China. Tigers are solitary, nocturnal hunters, preying on medium-sized mammals (e.g., deer). Locality and subspecies determine size, colour, and stripes. Southern tigers, such as the Bengal tiger (P. tigris tigris), are smaller and more brightly coloured than northern ones, such as the rare Siberian tiger (P. tigris altaica). Males grow to more than 3 ft (1 m) high and 7 ft (2.2 m) long, excluding the 3-ft (1-m) tail, and may weigh 350640 lb (160290 kg). Tigers live about 11 years. The persistent use of tiger parts as tonics or medicines, despite evidence refuting their efficacy, is rooted in the awe that the cat has inspired for millennia. Although internationally protected, tigers are seriously endangered; their populations shrank by more than 90% in the last century, and three subspecies are now extinct.
Yes, we need them in the wild nobody will disagree. But, as a cat breeder myself (not of big cats but of hairless domestic breed called the "Peterbald"), I have to tell you sometimes, keeping the cats will help those cats. I can't imagine how my cats would live in the wild; they would die of diseases, ticks,fleas all kinds of sicknesses. When I looked at the faces of your wild cats, I could see they were not hungry & they were healthy. They were beautiful examples of the tiger! If you had shown some ragtag circus or backyard farm that kept them badly.... well, then you would have had my attention. The cats you showed were beautiful & healthy examples of the breed.