Tiger Day was celebrated across the world on the 29th of July.

Dawa, delegate of Bhutan, celebrates it here with high ranking officials of WWF Bhutan.

Vietnam delegates An and You celebrate it in style, by getting the kids to make some great tiger toys, masks and sets…

I wouldn’t have so many pictures, but all these activities were so damn cute!!

They also held a painting day at one of the schools:

Oh no, I thought, as the headlines hit the UK: Polar bear kills young British adventurer in Norway.

The camp on Spitsbergen island were there to investigate the effects of climate change, when they ended up being attacked by the starkest sign of climate change they could possibly find.

I wondered how the general public would react to the news of this tragic incident.

For a long time, conservation organizations have spent a lot of time raising awareness of these animals in order to highlight the possibility of its extinction. Now, the same creature has ‘turned around’ and attacked. Would there be fury, I wondered? Would there be the usual comments that a man’s life is worth more than an animal’s, and that any sympathy for endangered animals and their cause should be spent on preserving the lives of humans instead? (Subjective nonsense that has no place in a world we wish to sustain and conserve…)

I was also worried how the media would go on to portray this. My hope was that the media would not portray polar bears and other desperate endangered animals as savage creatures who are encroaching on our rightful territory and dominion, and which need to be curbed and controlled.

Instead, I hoped that they would depict this news as a shocking reminder of the threat our planet is under, and the biocentric, equal-to-all-creatures view and approach we must take, now that we are self-appointed guardians of our planet.

There has been the usual media sensationalist approach, in the usual places. But thankfully, the vast majority of people have seen that we are intruders into a natural habitat where very little other humans live. I’m glad to hear this.

I believe the ‘RIP Svalbard Bear’ Facebook page, now taken down, has made conservationists look silly yet again. Perhaps a Facebook group demanding ‘Why were they allowed on the island in the first place?’ page would invite a more appropriate discussion, and would have been allowed to stay on the social media site. Instead, the media and anthropocentric commentors have launched this backlash, claiming the page has caused ‘outrage’ by insinuating that bears are more important than humans. I don’t believe this was the real reason behind the page’s creation. I do believe there should be healthy discussion of the safety of camping with polar bears and other wild animals, without any insinuation that one species is more important than another.

In my opinion? I simply disagree with the organization’s decision not to have an armed night guard or night flares, and to rely solely in the technology of some electric fence. As a result of this, we have lost both a young man and an animal on the brink of extinction as it is. I can only hope it creates more respect for the predators of the natural world, and not the ‘outrage’ that the media is determined to create in its daily readers.

Note: Through this blog post, I am merely supporting WWF-UK, and I am not a ‘voice’ of theirs in any way. I am merely aware that culling has been defined by them in the past as a last resort measure, and hunting, or ‘exploitation of the species’, can only be considered at sustainable population levels. WWF has not advocated this blog post prior to its publication.

In Dispatches: Conservation’s Dirty Little Secrets, the presenter examined how the overpopulation of elephants in Africa have led to the destruction of crops and of human-animal relations in Kenya. Despite finding out such facts, Steeds was gleefully shocked to find that, upon questioning WWF-UK on their process in such a situation, it was admitted that culling is sometimes the only solution. I’ve noticed a small uproar kicking up here and there on the internet. “CULLING??? What?? And WWF are supposed to be a conservation charity??! Well, as of this day I will withdraw all my support from conservation organisations! How can they be so hypocritcal?”

Stop a moment. Let’s look at WWF – its main goals are Sustainibility, Climate Change, and Conservation. All of these must work in a biocentric balance, working with both people and nature to improve conditions on our planet. So yes, I’m sorry, but sometimes, that does mean culling.

We have protected elephants for a long time. They’re no longer endangered, correct, but that doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods and that we can kill them off left right and center. The danger is that, if one elephant ruins crops in Kenya, the locals will be obviously angered, and a widescale hunting of elephants and backlash of conservation efforts will take place. But if there are too many elephants in that area, and one is culled to save human-animal relations, then this entire situation can be avoided.

WWF is NOT an animal rights group, fighting for the lives of every chicken and goat and, yes, even elephant out there. WWF is a conservation charity, which works to improve human and animal relations. If there are too many elephants in one part of Africa, and it’s threatening the entire biosystem as well as human relations with conservation, then culling is inevitable.

Example number 1: I was incredibly lucky this April to work with WWF Russia in their Moscow office, and edit this document for them ready for publishing: Trophy hunting of species inhabiting Russia as listed in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation.

It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it goes into more details on this procedure in Russia. Let’s look at the most important paragraph:

The position of WWF-Russia has always been and continues to remain unchanged. We are against commercial trophy hunting of rare species listed in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation, as such hunting contradicts the current legislation. At present, all of the species listed in theRed Data Book of the Russian Federation have been derived from trade (with some reservations). Should the population return to sustainable levels as a result of conservation efforts and natural restoration, the species can be removed from the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation. Only after that can consideration of the species’ exploitation, including trophy hunting, take place.

Basically: WWF does NOT support hunting of endangered animals under any circumstances. BUT, if said animals are returned to completely sustainable levels, then only then can their exploitation be discussed.

Example number 2: Whilst in Vladivostok last year with the Youth Tiger Summit team, visiting an area of conservation which has about six Siberian tigers on their territory, we were a little disconcerted to be told that the park’s main area of income was through hunting. They allow a few licenses per year, for hunting of such-and-such amount of deer, and perhaps one or two bears. On further consideration, however, this made perfect sense. Conservation needs its income, and this is found through the usage of large amounts of a certain animal for the benefit of others. Plus, in some situations, there cannot be too many of a certain type of animal, such as deer or – as we’ve learnt from Dispatches – elephants. It disrupts the ecosystem, as well as human-animal relations.

In a world where humans are essentially the guardians of nature, if we want to keep our planet sustainable then we need to keep the balance. Sometimes this means some tough decisions. I don’t support the death of an elephant or of a few deer in East Russia, but if it means that we have more elephants and lions and rhinos as a result, or one more tiger living on the brinks of Siberia, then sustainable conservation has been truly achieved.