Endangered Tigers Strike Purr-Fect Pose‏

STARING straight into the camera, these stunning Sumatran tigers make grrreat models.

The beautiful but rare animals were captured on camera by photographer Arthur Xanthopoulos.
The 39-year-old spent six months at Melbourne Zoo following and photographing the endangered cats, to raise awareness about these magnificent animals.

It is feared their numbers have tailed off in recent years and there are now as few as 400 of the fierce felines struggling to survive on the Indonesian island.

Arthur said: "The mission of my tiger project is to provide a photographic document of these magnificent animals as a species and as individuals.

"I hope that people will see why it is important to ensure the survival of the species currently under threat
"These incredibly beautiful tigers face danger through human impact on their environment and through poaching."

Although illegal, the poaching of wild Sumatran tigers still occurs. A fully-grown nine foot-long adult can fetch around £17,000 on the black market. In China tigers are believed to have mystical healing properties.

The Sumatran tigers at Melbourne Zoo are part of a breeding program to increase their population size.

This has seen some success, with proud nine-year-old mum Bin Jai giving birth to four cute cubs in February last year.

Arthur said: "They present challenges in photographing them since they rarely sit still. Their enclosure is very much a rain forest environment so as you can imagine they're not always readily available to be photographed.

"I think I've managed to succeed to some degree in creating that awareness."

Thanks for the post Simba but I can't get the link to work. Has anyone else got the same problem?

Lai Pai

The 7 day rule was put in place when we had so many people joining that had no intention of taking part in the forum, it was being used as a means to leave external links to other sites. Members are asked on joining to post a hello and to also join in the forum discussions and if this is not respected then members will be deleted.
Along with this, we can set a rule that external links and emails will not be accepted by new members until 7 days have elapsed. I can only presume that when the host site was set up, the hosts saw posting pictures as external links and therefore as we have the 7 day rule for external links, pictures also fall into that category, as the host sees them as external links.
For the time being we are not going to change our 7 day rule as we do have to protect WAA and it's members as Admins, we do however apologise for the inconvenience it causes new members that are genuine members and wish to share their photo's with the other members.

Also Rule 5 of the Membership Rules state
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THERE IS TO BE NO ADVERTISING OF OTHER SITES OR BUSINESSES ON THIS SITE UNLESS IT IS AT THE PRIOR AGREEMENT OF ALL THE ADMIN TEAM. THE ADMIN TEAM HAVE THE RIGHT TO DELETE YOUR MEMBERSHIP IF THIS IS NOT ADHERED TOO.

If you wish to advertise your site. Please make a request, and the Admin Team will consider it

The Admin Team.
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We have seen quite a few programes on TV, that have highlighted the plight of the Sumatran Tiger. In one a member of BBC's Springwatch went to Russia, to film, and even after being there with the local experts for weeks never even saw one
WS

Thanks for posting that Simba. The statistic can be quite scary.

SM

Thanks for explaining the rule WS

Lai Pai