Oscar nominated performer and long-time activist Leonardo DiCaprio has joined the fight to free Tony, the tiger kept in captivity for nearly a decade at a truck stop in Grosse Tete, La.

Last week DiCaprio shared the following with his Facebook followers:

“Have you heard about Tony, a Siberian-Bengal tiger living at a truck stop in Louisiana? This tiger has been living in a small inadequate and inhumane enclosure alone since 2003. We need to help the Animal Legal Defense Fund in urging the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to revoke the permit that allows this.”

The Inception actor becomes the latest star to team up with the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) in an effort that will hopefully soon lead to Tony’s freedom from the noise, dangerous fumes and cramped space he experiences daily at the Tiger Truck Stop.

Coincidentally — or not — DiCaprio’s timing couldn’t be any better as ALDF intends to finally put a stop to Tony’s exploitation by his owner Michael Sandlin… soon.

According to ALDF:

“On May 5, ALDF will square off against the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in East Baton Rouge District Court over the legality of a permit that allows Tony, a ten-year old Siberian-Bengal tiger, to be confined as a roadside exhibit at the Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete, La. ALDF is arguing that the Department violated state law in granting the permit to Tony’s owner, Michael Sandlin.”

If you want to join the fight, sign the petition to free Tony here.

And let’s hope the next story regarding Tony will be of his newfound freedom.

Source: This Dish Is Veg

We told you about Leonardo DiCaprio‘s partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to launch a campaign called Save Tigers Now. And his most recent donation of a cool $1 million to the Save Tigers Now campaign.

The 36-year-old hopes to raise $20 million for the cause, which he intends to use toward doubling the tiger population by 2022 — as it stands, there are just an estimated 3,200 wild tigers left in existence.

“Tigers are endangered and critical to some of the world’s most important ecosystems,” said DiCaprio. “Key conservation efforts can save the tiger species from extinction, protect some of the planet’s last wild habitats and help sustain the local communities surrounding them. By protecting this iconic species, we can save so much more.”

And this morning on Twitter, DiCaprio seems to have found a fellow animal lover to promote the cause! The Inception actor tweeted, “@LeoDiCaprio I think we’ve just found our future spokesperson. #SaveTigersNow http://bit.ly/gRkD4j”

The video he tweeted is of Bella, an adorable little girl who is reporting on Save Tigers Now for a project at school. We’ve included the video below, so you can hear the lowdown from Bella and why saving tigers is so important to her. Also, enjoy the cat meows in the background (too cute!!).

Source: ecorazzi.com

Russian PM Vladimir Putin has praised Leonardo DiCaprio as “a real man” for his persistence in getting to a St. Petersburg summit on saving tigers.

His first plane was forced to make an emergency landing after losing an engine, while a second had to stop after encountering strong headwinds.

“I would like to thank you for coming despite all the obstacles,” Mr. Putin told DiCaprio at the conference.

DiCaprio has pledged $1m (£635,000) to the effort.

Mr. Putin broke off from a prepared speech after he spotted DiCaprio in the audience.

“A person with less stable nerves could have decided against coming, could have read it as a sign — that it was not worth going,” Mr. Putin said.

The prime minister said that, in Russia, DiCaprio’s efforts made him a “muzhik” — or “real man”.

Russian roots

A Delta Airline plane DiCaprio was traveling in on Monday was forced to make an emergency landing.

A second plane was forced to make an unscheduled refueling stop in Helsinki.

DiCaprio told the prime minister that two of his late grandparents were Russian, and that he had always wanted to take his grandmother to St. Petersburg.

“I’m sure when you get to know St. Petersburg you will be proud of your Russian roots,” Mr. Putin said.

Governments of 13 countries where tigers still live met in Russia on Tuesday for the summit to discuss a plan to save the big cats from extinction.

In the last 100 years, tiger numbers have dropped from about 100,000 to less than 3,500 tigers in the wild today.

Delegates agreed to double tiger numbers by 2022, to focus on protecting tiger habitats and to address poaching.

Source: BBC News

American actor Leonardo DiCaprio is “a real man” for having participated of the St. Petersburg summit dedicated to tigers preservation, praised the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to images revealed by the Russian television.

The airplane that was bringing the actor from New York needed to do an emergency landing shortly after taking off, due to a fire in the engine.

“I would like to thank you for coming despite all these obstacles”, said Putin to DiCaprio, during the summit’s closure.

Despite the incident, DiCaprio took off immediately in another plane, that needed to make a stopover in Helsinki, in Finland, to refuel after strong winds during the flight aggravated a fuel use up bigger than expected.

“In our country we say: it’s a man, a real man”, concluded the PM.

Source: Portal Terra

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin discussed tiger protection issues with American actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who has Russian ancestors and came to St. Petersburg to take part in the International Tiger Forum.

The meeting between Putin and DiCaprio took place after the end of a concert in the Mikhailovsky Theatre, dedicated to the Tiger Forum, which was attended by representatives from 13 countries.

The head of the Russian government told of how the idea to create a dedicated program for tiger preservation in Russia came about. He noted that this program, nonetheless, would not solve all problems.

“There’s a lot to be done still. At the same time, specialists believe that the number of tigers in our country is optimal at the moment, because it corresponds to the food base that they have available to them,” – Vladimir Putin said

The PM also asked DiCaprio about how he came to be involved in problems of the tiger population.

The Hollywood star revealed that he had been approached by tiger preservation specialists and also spoke of his journeys to India, Indonesia and Nepal.

DiCaprio said that this was his first visit to St. Petersburg and he planned to take in the sights on Wednesday.

Source: The Voice of Russia

Titanic star to donate part of his fortune to fund anti-poaching efforts, habitat protection and campaigns to raise awareness

Leonardo DiCaprio made a million-dollar commitment to conserve tigers today as the leaders of Russia, China and a dozen Asian nations struggled to put together a finance package to double the wild population of the endangered predator.

The star of Titanic, The Aviator and Blood Diamond announced plans to donate part of his fortune through the environment group WWF to fund anti-poaching efforts, habitat protection and campaigns to raise awareness about the plight of the animal.

“Illegal poaching of tigers for their parts and massive habitat loss due to palm oil, timber and paper production are driving this species to extinction,” said DiCaprio. “If we don’t take action now, one of the most iconic animals on our planet could be gone in just a few decades.”

DiCaprio is in St Petersburg for a tiger summit hosted by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The gathering of heads of state where tigers exist in the wild, including the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, is the highest-level event ever staged to save a single species. Other donor countries such as Norway are also present although Britain has not sent a representative.

The strong demonstration of political will and celebrity support has not yet been matched by adequate funds to achieve the summit’s goal of increasing the number of wild tigers from an estimated 3,200 today to at least 6,400 within 12 years.

The World Bank is trying to raise $350m from governments, institution and private donors to achieve this goal. The Wildlife Conservation Society said it would put $50m on the ground before the next year of the tiger in 2022.

NGOs said a stable, long-term mechanism was needed that would best be provided through the Redd-plus scheme to protect forests with carbon financing.

“We know how to save tigers. The problem is we don’t sustain it. We fund conservation for a few years and then it tails off,” said Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at WWF. “We have to find sustainable financing.”

Stanley Johnson, of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, said $350m over five years was “chicken feed”.

“If we can mobilize $80bn to save Irish banks, then surely a tiny fraction of that can be mobilized to save tigers,” he said.

Source: guardian.co.uk

By Leonardo DiCaprio and Carter S. Roberts

Tigers have long provoked awe in the human imagination, becoming symbols of untamed nature whose “fearful symmetry,” in the words of William Blake, has inspired everything from art to advertising. In the wild, however, tigers are on the verge of disappearing.

A century ago, some 100,000 tigers roamed the wilderness across much of Asia. But 100 years of human overhunting of tigers’ prey, such as deer and wild pigs, and of poaching driven by demand for tigers’ skins and other body parts has been catastrophic. As few as 3,200 tigers remain, living in only 7 percent of their original natural habitat.

As the Year of the Tiger draws to a close on the Chinese lunar calendar, world leaders are gathering in St. Petersburg later this month for an unprecedented event: a tiger summit hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, convened for the sole purpose of saving the species from extinction. Heads of government – recognizing that the limited resources devoted to tiger conservation have not slowed deforestation or deterred the criminal syndicates that traffic in wildlife parts – will seek to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022 (the next Year of the Tiger). The 13 Asian countries that tigers call home have already agreed in principle to this goal.

But good intentions are not enough. The $350 million, five-year Global Tiger Recovery Program these countries are proposing will battle deforestation, poaching and the market for tiger parts. The money will come from both government and private sources. We are personally committed to raising funds to support these efforts. Multilateral agencies such as the World Bank are also on board, funding pre-summit negotiations in Nepal, Thailand and Indonesia.

But there is one country outside Asia whose cooperation is crucial: the United States.
Of course, the United States has no wild tigers. Our big cats are animated in films, sell us cereal or stare at us from zoo cages. Why should we care?

Because saving tigers is a compelling and cost-effective means of preserving so much more that is essential to life on Earth. The tiger is what conservationists call an “umbrella” species. By rescuing them, we save everything beneath their ecological umbrella – everything connected to them – including the world’s last great forests, whose carbon storage mitigates climate change.

For example, Indonesia’s 18 million-acre peat forests, home to the Sumatran tiger, contain 36 percent of the world’s tropical carbon stores. So if we protect tigers by stopping deforestation, we also salvage the carbon storage these forests provide. A forest that can’t support tigers isn’t of much use to us, either.

What can the Obama administration do? The United States has been a leader in tiger conservation, providing critical funding for anti-poaching efforts throughout Asia and using the threat of sanctions to persuade countries such as China and South Korea to ban tiger trade. But the upcoming summit will not succeed without U.S. support – financial and political. Washington must signal its commitment by sending its top diplomat to St. Petersburg: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Pressing challenges such as the war in Afghanistan and Middle East peace rightly dominate Clinton’s attention, but the crime syndicates that dominate the multibillion-dollar wildlife-trafficking industry demand her consideration as well. If Clinton sits beside other heads of government and high-level diplomats from the 13 tiger-range nations in St. Petersburg, the Obama administration will demonstrate global environmental leadership.

Tiger conservation can also happen at home. The United States has nearly twice as many tigers in captivity as there are in the wild worldwide – tigers sleeping in American back yards, in private breeding facilities and at roadside zoos from New York to Texas. We need a federal agency to monitor these tiger “pets” and make sure they don’t find their way into the same black market for wildlife products that kills wild tigers around the world. We can close loopholes in the Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act and give agencies such as the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture the financial support they need to vigorously enforce animal protection laws.

Wild tigers stand at a crossroads of extinction and survival. The “burning bright” eyes that so inspired Blake will be forever extinguished unless we act now.

info@savetigersnow.org

Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio and World Wildlife Fund president and chief executive Carter S. Roberts recently launched the Save Tigers Now campaign.

Source: WWF