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If tigers go extinct, how will we describe them to the children of the future?
Don’t bother. They won’t believe you or they’ll say it’s metaphorical.
Same question can be asked about the mahn described in parshas Beshalach and many things we don’t have today.
G-d forbid. And easy, just direct them to a package of Frosted Flakes.
They [were] GREEEEEAT!
—That wasn’t funny.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Take them to the zoo.
Winnie, if they’re extinct, they won’t be in the zoo. Maybe a stuffed one in a museum.
Maybe she meant to take the kids to a zoo because now they can climb over the fence without making the news
Yehudayona, the animals that you see in the zoo are not usually captured from the wild but are born and bred in the zoo, and shared among zoos. So if tigers become extinct in the wild, they will still exist in the zoos, where no one is hunting them or destroying their habitat to extinction. Do you think the zoos will just decide they are no longer interesting and throw them away if they become extinct in the wild? Some zoos (sorry, zoological societies) have even given themselves a mandate to preserve species that are near extinct- they have specialized breeding programs, etc. Even if they don’t achieve their goal of re-instating these animals to the wild, there will be several left for people to see in the zoo.
Did we forget that in today’s day and age we have photos and videos?
Yidd23 -“If tigers go extinct, how will we describe them to the children of the future?”
I’ve seen an extinct tiger in the museum. It was a fake Sabertooth tiger. As a matter of fact, in Disney world, they have robotic Dinosaurs that move around!
Actually, after thinking about this thread, I realized that my kids have never actually met a live tiger in the wild, and they only know what one looks like from pictures and maybe the zoo. Most people don’t encounter wild animals, whether extinct or not, so the OP’s question can apply to many animals even today.
I meet vilde chayos every day. I ride the train with them…
Do humans feel shame when animals become instinct?
People used to hunt dodo birds and I’ve never seen one IRL. They are gone.
We go about life like nothing.
Not realizing that the world was more species diverse at one point.
Our lawns and parks used to be covered in native grasses and trees.
Some places today used to be barren land or swamps.
Will anyone care about tigers enough to mention them more than at a glance? If G-d forbid they become extinct.
There is video footage of the last thylacine.
Who knew about the thylacine before this post?
Do your children know about the thylacine?
And/Or do children you know know about the thylacine?
Maybe they will just stumble upon them one day on Google or in the CR someday when they’re older, like I did.
To the opening poster: Did anyone ever tell you about saber-tooth tigers or woolly mammoths? Same thing will work for 21st Century tigers.
The more difficult question? That evolution thing, which ties into saber-tooth tigers, 21st Century tigers, and antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Sarah Palin thinks dinosaurs accompanied us out of Egypt.
What is the Torah perspective on de-extinction via modern biotechnology?
lightbrite,
Do humans feel shame when animals become instinct?
There have been several mass extinction events in planetary history – potentially caused by substantial environmental changes. Humans are causing substantial planetary changes now (as we have for much of our history), which is partly causing a new mass extinction event. Should we be ashamed? I don’t think that environmental changes intended to better human living conditions are wrong. I do think, however, that we should become more aware of and smarter about the changes that we are making, as many of them are random and unintentional. A huge depletion of biodiversity is probably not good for humanity in the long run – it limits our ability to adapt to change.
Not realizing that the world was more species diverse at one point.
It’s been more, it’s been less.
RebYidd23,
Why not? We do every year when Parshas Noach is leined after Simchas Torah.
Oh yea there is the whole boost in antibiotic resistant bacteria and viruses that are resistant to modern medicine too… I wonder if they have a zoo for the first bacteria that were killed by medicine?
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