Dear Friend

Dear Friend,

Do you know that there are only 500 Siberian tigers left in the world? These majestic animals once roamed free in packs of twenty or more, the kings of the dense Russian forest. Now, their habitat depleted, their food sources ravaged by “progress,” abandoned by those who supposedly loved them most, these beautiful and essential animals are left desolate and alone, wandering the remains of their devastated habitat, clueless and stunned and totally, totally alone.

Can you imagine how it feels, friend, to have everything you once held dear, the very fabric of your world, suddenly swept out from under your feet?

Please help the tigers today by making a generous donation to the International Wildlife Campaign for Tigers.

I want to tell you a story today, friend, about that last Siberian tiger. Think about it: he was once the leader of the last pride. He walked side by side with his beautiful and supposedly loyal partner through the only world he had ever known. A champion. Master of the kingdom. He was happy and fulfilled and for the first time in his life, perhaps, content. His days were full and interesting, filled with the very stuff of life — hunting, eating, creating, loving. And his nights: how joyful to come home to a nest already warmed by the presence of his Partner, her feminine hand and devoted heart evident in small improvements — a smell here, a cozier sleeping area there, comfort food and a loving touch and soft, soft things tucked into secret spaces.

But as our tiger moved proudly through his world, awful changes were forming, the gears of the tiger’s downfall churning ever so slowly. As he fought and ate and made love, as he made plans for the future, built his empire, grew ever stronger, fell deeper in love — even as he did all of these things, changes were afoot — development encroaching, water levels quietly receding, scientists tagging and tracking, measuring and mapping.

How is the tiger to notice these things? Every day he roams down to the riverbed. Every day that river has retreated a fraction of an inch. Each and every day this scenario plays out, until one day the tiger follows the trail down to its end and is shocked to find that the source of his water, the thing he simply cannot live without, the very pipeline of life, has been reduced to a trickle.

Won’t you make a gift of $50 or more to help the tigers today?

$50        $75        $100        $150        $500        $______

But, you might ask, how is it that the tiger didn’t notice that change was afoot? It is a good question, and one the tiger might ask himself.

The answer, friend, lies in the very nature of the tiger: he is not a scientist, tracking, studying, taking the mystery of life and cutting it up, examining it under slides until all of the joy has been systematically studied out of it. He is not a field researcher, lying in wait, preying on those who prey, shooting poison darts and dragging the unwitting subject into a field station for weighing, tagging, the installation of GPS tracking devices that send tiny electronic signals to a website that features the field researcher’s ruggedly handsome photo, the African Savannah in the background, his countenance forced into a purposeful but not unfriendly grimace, across every single page. Every. Single. Page.

The tiger is an animal. He is lustful, joyful. The tiger simply is.

And now he is left alone in the world, nobody to turn to, nothing to be done. His river is reduced to a puddle. His partner is gone, stolen away to the clear heads of science. It is a tragedy, a farce, a cosmic joke.

It is, his acquaintances might say, what it is.

Are you willing to let that happen, friend? To stand idly by while our world erodes and a creature as bold and important as the Siberian tiger is left adrift? Please give generously today.

And what of Partner, you might ask? Surely Partner would never abandon the tiger. Surely she is just as dependent on the wealth of the land, on the river and the lagoon, the thick forest choked with poplar, oleaster, and willow. But Partner is different, friend. She is a tigress. She is  beautiful, adaptable, malleable. She is a survivor. Perhaps what we are witnessing is the very nature of evolution — a flaw that becomes the standard, a weakness that is passed on through generations of a changing world until, against all nature save science itself, it becomes a strength.

Is this the kind of world you want to live in, friend? One in which bravery and devotion are rewarded with wanton destruction? One in which a stunning tigress is disappeared like a Guantanamo Bay prisoner? Where rivers are shriveled to a trickle?

Won’t you give today? With your tax-deductible gift of $75 or more, you’ll receive a free International Wildlife Fund for Tigers tote bag, perfect for groceries, the playground, or the beach.

Will our tiger ever know what has happened to his dear Partner, to his river, his forests once thick with vegetation? Is he condemned to forever walk alone, the last tiger, until finally he shrinks like the river itself, a trickle of a tiger, skin and bones, a husk in display in some low-rent zoo, a sulking prisoner of four walls in some forsaken generic suburb?

Will the tiger ever know what happened to Partner, or will questions roil his tiger brain for the rest of his life. Will he be haunted by images of Partner rutting with another, of her walking through her own ruined wasteland, cursing her fate, crying herself to sleep. Or even worse — standing next to a field researcher, the glorious tigress reduced to nothing so much as a prized possession, a trophy, tagged and tamed and caged and presented for all to see. On every single page.

Perhaps our tiger will find a brief and poisonous solace in the watering hole. But where once, with Partner by his side, he was a king, he is now alone and wretched, the pinched stink of rejection preceding him like porcupine quills stuck into his snout.  Will he be forced to lie down in the mud with the jackals and the hyenas, the buzzard and the wild boar? Will he slink home to masturbate in silence, Partner’s soft, soft things tucked under his nose, crying and delirious and disgusted, poisoned beyond dignity and wondering how this could have happened to his world, questioning the very thing that he has never once questioned — his very tigerness itself.

Don’t let that happen, dear friend! Give today — help fund our essential tiger programs.

Help fund our essential programs, yes. Yes! Keep our researchers in the field and away from our urban streets, our parks and hiking trails, happy hours, and holiday parties. Keep these ingenious and cunning scientists where they belong — Siberia. Siberia! A land devoid of impressionable yet beautiful development associates. Siberia, literally the other side of the world.

If you love something, dear friend, keep it far enough away that you will never again see it roaming the aisles of Macy’s, shopping for wine glasses or lingerie, slim and tanned from two months in the low sun of the Russian steppe.

Please help the tigers today. Give generously.

Won’t you make a donation of $75 more more today?

$50         $75         $100         $150         $500         $______

Let us return, friend, to our Siberian tiger. Picture him now: he moves through the forest in search of a new river, a new Partner. Behind him is devastation; ahead, nothing but questions. The tiger presses on — he is, as we have said before, a pure and simple animal. He moves forward because it is all he knows. He moves forward — he works and hunts and eats — because he is alive and it is what he does. He moves forward because he simply has no mechanism for doing anything else.

You may wonder, What can I do anyway?

What you can do, friend, is act right now. Take a lesson from the tiger. Watch your back. Those footprints on the riverbed? They might be the first pilgrims, come to colonize your lands. They might be the world, coming to suck your riverbeds dry, leaving you adrift and alone and working late at night, too late, afraid to go back to your dark, cold, empty apartment.

Now, more than ever — before it’s too late — the tigers need your support.

Please give now and enjoy this free tiger tote bag.