...the goddess of love
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...the goddess of love
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The Biography of tigers, particularly Qadesh:
Qadesh was a female Siberian tiger, one of the four, possibly five, subspecies believed to still exist in the wild. These are by far the largest and most powerful cats in the world. Qadesh measured over nine feet long from paw to outstretched paw and weighed almost five hundred pounds, average size and weight for a female Siberian tiger. Males are much larger - they can measure more than fourteen feet in length and weigh in excess of nine hundred pounds. They are capable of lifting several times their own body weight, as well as themselves, straight up, as much as several times their own body length, and able to exert more than 6,000 pounds per square inch of jaw pressure (four times that of a Pit Bull dog). Most recently estimated at fewer than three hundred in number, some estimates are as low as a hundred and fifty of them still surviving in the wild, but although there are only believed to have been fifteen imported into North America, there are approximately fifteen hundred in regulated zoos and game-farms with an estimated thirteen and a half thousand in private ownership in the United States alone (United States Humane Society figures).
Siberian tigers have many traits which lend
themselves to a life 'on the road'. As adults, they are totally solitary in the
wild; the only exception is when the female calls the male into her territory
for breeding. They are very conservative in how they expend their energy,
In the sixteen years Qadesh
shared with us here on earth she had done more than 11,000 public appearances for well over 3,000,000 people;
everywhere from five star hotels and convention centres, to daycares and
elementary schools (to the delight of their students AND the teaching staff). She
has appeared many times on television networks, mostly Canadian, but also
throughout North America and even worldwide; many international wire-service
stories, hundreds of national and local stories and full front page (in colour)
47 times in major Canadian daily newspapers. We
continued to pursue every reasonable opportunity to present Qadesh
to as many people as possible, to raise their awareness of not only the imminent
extinction of these magnificent creatures, but of one-quarter of all the
mammal species on earth. Meanwhile, it is my conviction that over her lifetime Qadesh
has been at least as responsible for raising the general awareness of the
tiger's plight in our modern day world as any other single factor in Canadian
society. There is no substitute for the real thing; thousands, in their
'thank you' notes and letters, have echoed that sentiment. We have many such
testimonials: from Veterinarians, such as Kay Mehren of the Metro
Toronto Zoo, to schoolteachers, professional animal 'behaviourologists', and
SPCA supervisors with 25 years experience. From
people of all ages and all descriptions; even animal lovers like yourself.
Please peruse the 'Testimonials' page of this
site. Qadesh was never caged, was never drugged, and
never 'attacked' anyone. After 16 years of constant interaction
with her, sometimes in conditions I have found extremely stressful, I
still had absolute confidence that Qadesh never
posed a threat to anyone. If I ever had reason to question that conviction, I
certainly wouldn't have exposed anyone to any risk, not even to her displaying any
anti-social behaviour, because she would most certainly have been the one to
suffer the greatest. My
confidence remained sufficient that I allowed my only child - just turned nine this
July - to sleep with her and I, and share our home with her all day, every day; and because
my ex-wife and I divorced seven years ago, I also had to satisfy the Family
Courts and the Children's Aid Society as to the safety of such an environment.
So if you hear someone saying: "but its still a wild animal", just ask
them to explain what they mean by that, and the source or justification for that
opinion.... I always had a standing offer for anyone to have any veterinarian check Qadesh
at any time, at any location; if they could have found any trace of tranquilizers in her, she and the
Limo she always traveled in would have been theirs! If you still have any misgivings about her
well-being, please E-Mail us at tigerman@qadesh.com
and we'll be more than happy to answer any questions you found unanswered here,
or elsewhere on her web site or those linked hereto. Thank you for your time, attention, and interest in Qadesh, Siberian
Tigers, and the survival of wildlife in our modern world. E-Mail us at:
tigerman@qadesh.com Please click on the name below for the biography of the Tigerman: |
Qadesh
was born June 27th, 1988, in Orono, Ontario, Canada, and became a member of my
family while still just an infant. My wife and I bottle fed her for more than five months,
and between us and our crew, Qadesh was never alone
for more than seconds in the first years of her life; she never was for more
than a few hours daily. I spent an hour or more at a time, at least four
to six times each day, working with Qadesh. Teaching
her how much force was acceptable, and how much was too much - teaching her to
have a "soft" mouth, just as you would with a retriever; developing
her sense of confidence and security in our human, urban environment. These are
such intelligent creatures that teaching them anything is easy; their
understanding is truly intuitive. The only discipline she ever required was a
sharp, scolding word; the only reward she ever needed was unlimited love and
affection (which she returned a thousand fold). Until her very recent death, Qadesh
and I still tried to spend at least a couple of hours each day playing together,
attempting to maintain some semblance of physical fitness; but near the end I think
we
both rather enjoyed, comparatively speaking, semi-retirement.
some would even say they are lazy in nature, but it is simply an evolutionary
adaptation to minimize their nutritional, and therefore territorial,
requirements for survival. They like to sleep 18 to as much as 22 hours each
day, almost never run, and seldom chase anything more than 30 to 40 yards.
Instead, as 'apex hunters', they lie in wait by a watering hole or along a path
to or from one, and pounce on their prey, averaging close to twenty attempts
for a successful kill. They will then 'gorge' themselves (a female consuming 30
to 35 pounds, a male typically 55 to as much as 75 pounds) knowing that by the
time they reawaken the remains will probably have disappeared, eaten or hauled
off by other
predators or scavengers. Qadesh's diet was five to
seven pounds daily of a frozen raw meat product called 'Zoo Carnivore Mix' that
we imported from Nebraska. Mostly course-ground whole horses, seafood and poultry,
it is analyzed and adjusted for micro-nutrients, vitamins, minerals and amino
acids and is scientifically formulated as a complete diet for these large cats
living a rather sedentary life. Having virtually no natural enemies, the tiger's
curiosity is unfettered; they are naturally inquisitive and independent,
intelligent, and very affectionate. You couldn't ask for a better friend to
share life with - providing that you truly love them, and are therefore willing
to freely put their needs before your own. Please note I said 'share' - you
don't ever 'own' these creatures! Living with them is a never-ending exercise in
compromise, negotiation, and accommodation, and that is as it should be. But it
should be true for every pet because in taking them into 'captivity', usually
for our own personal desires, we have not only relieved them of the
responsibility for their own survival, but have also removed any opportunity for them
to care for themselves.
So,
in the wild, they have been very nearly exterminated; driven to the very brink of
extinction. Meanwhile, in captivity, they have been bred indiscriminately and
completely irresponsibly. Because a mother must spend twenty months or more
nurturing, feeding, protecting and teaching her cubs how to survive in the wild
to give them even a miniscule chance of survival, no one has ever yet
successfully re-introduced a captive-born cub back into the wild. So despite
that there are believed to have been only eighty-three ever captured in the wild and
then brought into captivity (almost all orphaned offspring, their mothers killed
by poachers looking to get rich quick from the fifty to a hundred thousand
dollars their carcasses fetch on the black market), and, so far as we know, only
fifteen of those were ever brought to North America, the only hope for
their survival in the wild is to protect those few that still survive there
now.....and that means war; the 'shoot to kill the poachers before they shoot
you' kind of war. And wars cost money, lots of money; there is no such thing as
a cheap war. But this is a war to preserve life on earth as we know it - surely
that is worth some sacrifice....
Meantime,
we must somehow get control of this indiscriminate breeding of them in
captivity. These are cats; they breed prolifically. They are capable of having
as many as three litters a year, with as many as six or seven cubs in each
litter......all the Zoos, Game Farms and Circuses already have more than they
want, and certainly the capacity to breed more than they'll ever need. It is believed
that up to eighty per cent of the cubs born in captivity never see their first
birthday, 'put down' because a permanent home can't be found for them. Just as
sad is the recent 'fad' of albino tigers, and the new 'sport-breed' (man-made)
sub-specie of white tigers with chocolate brown stripes, displacing 'real' tiger
sub-species at our Zoos and Game Farms (because they attract a larger crowd, and
therefore attract larger revenues). Along with ignoring the many thousands of
cubs that were bred, and then disposed of, in the selective breeding program to
develop these so-called 'sport breeds', this only serves to make an already
tragic situation infinitely worse, truly an abomination of civic responsibility.
This is the kind of 'looking the other way' by the public that opens the doors
to such abuses as to where these animals are raised to adulthood only to be shot
at point-blank range to bolster the inadequate egos of so-called 'sportsmen' at
so-called 'Safari Ranches'. The human race is the only one on earth that kills
for 'the sport of it', rather than strictly for survival, and we're doing a
pretty good job of killing ourselves in the process. There is no doubt that if
we continue to reduce the bio-diversity of this small finite spaceship we call
earth by daily driving specie after specie into extinction at the current rate,
depending on whose statistics you give greatest credence to, of one
every twenty seconds to one every three minutes, we will soon also drive our specie, homo-sapiens, into
extinction as well.
It has also been our aim to provoke people to question the common prejudices
espoused by some - but certainly not all - well-meaning, but ill-informed,
Humane Society, entertainment industry, and media people regarding these
animals, their dispositions, and their personalities. Usually they will state,
as if it were an established 'fact', that these are 'wild' animals and therefore
can 'never' be domesticated. Well, all animals, including humans, were once
'wild'; and if one considers the incidence of on-going atrocities, from genocide
to the pervasive violence in our modern-day society, I think it's fair to say
that, as a society, we still have a long way to go before we can claim to be
universally non-violent, stable, predictable, etc.; i.e., civilized. Qadesh
was infinitely more predictable than almost any human I have ever known;
in fact, I have found most animals to be more predictable than most
humans. I think most people, possibly because of our species' apparently innate
arrogance, are simply unwilling to make the effort to consider a given situation
from the animal's point of view. Animals, such as Qadesh,
have been 'kept' as domesticated (that is: living in the home, unfettered, with
people in a domestic environment) for thousands of years, albeit never commonly
because of the tremendous resources and sacrifices it requires. Only the very wealthy -
sultans, emperors, kings, lords and the like - could afford the staff, the
space, the resources to so indulge themselves; or those (circuses, zoos, game
farms, sanctuaries, magicians) that could figure out a way for the animals to
contribute to their own support - truly, the definition of 'domesticated'. Qadesh
is sixth generation 'domesticated' that we know of, but it could be,
since she is from middle-European zoo-stock, that her captivity, if not
'domesticity', goes back hundreds, if not thousands, of generations. But
I really don't think that is relevant. No-one denies the possibility of
'domesticating' aboriginal homo sapiens, or elk, buffalo, you name it, in a
single generation, and the list goes on through every so-called domesticated
creature we so define today; even wolves... why not tigers? They are,
after all, just cats; very big cats to be sure, but since when was size an
accurate way to judge the 'domesticity' or 'nature' of anything? Our world is
full of 'gentle giants' every bit as much as 'little terrors'. So, while I
certainly do not think they are suitable pets for everyone, neither does
that necessarily make them completely unsuitable for anyone. However, if
any of you are now thinking 'I want one!', you must please first read my
'harangue' against such an undertaking on the 
