Global Tiger Day: Tiger at Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Damon

I took a quick look at TreeHugger today, one of the blogs I actually have time to read that doesn’t deal with technology (work), and found out that it was Global Tiger Day. I was, as always, saddened by the news that there are only about 3,500 tigers left in the wild right now (there are actually more in America!). Since poaching and habitat loss are two of the biggest risks to these wonderful animals, here’s hoping that people stop shooting them for their skins and for “traditional medicines”.

Tiger, Cubs, and Conservation Oh My! Celebrate Global Tiger Day (treehugger.com)
Adorable Endangered Tiger Cubs Caught on Camera…In Forest Marked to be Cleared (Video) (treehugger.com)

Asiatic Leopard at Safari Park in Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Damon

I took this picture of an Asiatic Leopard at the Safari Park in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. While tigers are probably my favorite animal of the big cat family, with a very close second going to the snow leopard, I’ve always admired the strength of leopards and the overall menace in their eyes (many people have commented on how piercing the eyes of a leopard are). Leopards are generally regarded as the strongest member of the big cat family on a pound-for-pound basis, which would make them the Manny Pacquiao of the big cat family, and I have no doubt that this animal would have no problems dispatching me to the netherworld even if I weigh considerably more than they do (leopards generally way about 100-150 pounds or so).

10 BIG CATS and Where to Spot them (tripbase.com)
Golden Buddha at Wat Tham Suea in Kanchanaburi, Thailand (damonbillian.com)

Snow Leopard at the San Francisco Zoo

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Damon

The Snow Leopard is one of the more mysterious of the big cats (little is known about them because they live at fairly extreme altitudes). As I hadn’t been to the San Francisco Zoo in a little over a year, it was nice to see that the Snow Leopards were moved in to a public viewing area so I could actually take photographs of them (I believe the two leopards were in the cat house for quite some time, which wasn’t accessible to the public following the tiger attack there several years ago).

The one drawback about San Francisco Zoo these days: all of the dangerous mammals have quite a bit of cage and fencing around them now, so taking photographs of some of the animals isn’t quite as easy as it used to be.

Snow Leopard Spotting (socialactions.net)
Endangered Snow Leopards Have Two New Additions (huffingtonpost.com)

Sumatran Tigers fighting at the San Francisco Zoo

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Damon

The Sumatran Tiger is one of the most severely endangered of the big cats, largely due to habitat loss and illegal hunting in Indonesia, so the sad state of affairs is that it is quite likely that these animals may no longer exist outside of zoos in about twenty years (like many of the big cats). The Sumatran and Malay tigers are much smaller than the Bengal and Siberian tigers, but I’m still sure you wouldn’t want to run into one of them hiking around.

Wild Tiger Population Dropped by 96.8% in 20 Years (treehugger.com)
Major Asian Paper Corps Undermine Indonesia’s Carbon Emission Reduction Commitments (treehugger.com)

Malay Tiger:Lok Kawi Wildlife Park in Borneo, Malaysia

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Damon

Jaguar: Chiang Mai Zoo

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Damon

This picture of a Jaguar was modified using Picnik from this original here. As you can see from the original, the glass of the cage put some strange aberrations in the photo that couldn’t be easily corrected with any of the tools I had at my disposal (I don’t use Photoshop because I haven’t had the time to really learn it). I used Picnik to change the color to black & white, played around with the contrast a little bit, and then went for a focal zoom effect on Picnik to create some “movement” in the picture.

Female Lioness: San Francisco Zoo

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Damon

Out of all of the animals in the animal kingdom, I have a special place in my heart for all members of the Big Cat family. Lions are interesting to me because they’re more of a social group than other members of the cat family, something that is fairly unusual (Tigers, for example, are pretty much solitary animals once they mature).