With the excitement of a new Sumatran tiger now roaming at the Honolulu Zoo, it’s time to expose one of the great fallacies of the animal kingdom. The world’s tigers must change their public relations firm. It’s time for these striped, stealthy, super-cats to claim their well-earned title of “King of the Jungle”. Sorry lion fans, but check the facts. While Sumatran tigers are small (comparatively speaking), experts universally suggest that a Bengal tiger would trounce an African lion in a battle royale.
Pulse Nigeria (and other sources) point out that tigers are apex predators; stronger, faster, heavier, and even nastier than lions. They’re known for their stealth and ambush tactics; they also carouse solo- with great pride, no doubt, but without the need for a “pride” around them.
As tigers and lions don’t live together, a lion vs. tiger showdown might only occur as yet another WWE/MMA/UFC/PFL/Bellator pay-per-view battle- the “greatest cat fight of all-time”. That would showcase some great public relations work! I’ve long admired the tiger’s independence, power, beauty, and ability to handle all of this “king of the jungle” crap with apparent humility, nonchalance, and class. Oh, and lions don’t even live in “the jungle”, and elephants rightfully scare them!
We see too little of tiger coolness and focus in our human world, with our limited attention spans and unquenchable thirsts for the newest, coolest, greatest, must-have/must-see, influenced things du jour. Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”; perhaps a more appropriate concept now would be “…digitally famous- for 15-seconds”.
We live, at times, in a post-truth world, where facts don’t seem to matter (to some). We often rely on deep, moral self-intuition when challenged or threatened by information contrary to our wants or needs (check out Jonathan Haidt’s, “The Righteous Mind”, 2012).
Unlike lions and tigers, humans do live close together. Vitriolic rhetoric sadly nowadays sometimes includes physical threats (often anonymous) aimed at those who some may not agree with- elected officials, teachers/educators, rights advocates, celebrities, business leaders, etc. We cherry pick our media/information sources where and when they fit our primal needs.
But we can’t keep acting like lions and tigers- in relative silos and ignorant, staking our own kingdoms. Let’s stop playing “who’s the king of the jungle”? That’s an unresolvable animal act. We need to stop growling and posturing, and start interacting… like humans.
Think about it.