Tiger conservation charity?

December 5, 2015 10:14 AM

Every year I donate to two charities, one for humans (Doctors Without Borders, Direct Relief, etc) and one for animals. I'd like to donate for the conservation of tigers, but I'm not sure which charity is best. Details within.

The charity TigerTime looks interesting, but it's UK-based so isn't required to file IRS forms, which means it's not indexed and rated on Charity Navigator.

It's a division of the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. Here are its financials, per the UK government. Do they look okay? CEO salary isn't specified like on Charity Navigator, and I wish the ratio of fundraising to charitable spending was a bit better, but they seem to be involved in real fieldwork with tigers instead of just being a sanctuary for circus animals (also admirable, but I'm hoping we can keep them out of circuses to begin with.)

Are there any better options out there? It's not like I'm donating a huge amount, but I'd like it to be used effectively.

posted by bluecore to Science & Nature (9 answers total)

Tigers specifically, or big cats in general? My across-the-street neighbor and fellow square dancer donates a lot of her time and energy to the running of the Snow Leopard Conservancy, nobody in that organization is getting rich off of their work, and everyone believes they're doing good things and they're people I like and trust.

She's also involved in Cat Haven, though beyond contact with her I haven't met any of those folks yet.
posted by straw at 10:39 AM on December 5, 2015

National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative. I would look for organizations that can work with national and regional governments to achieve habitat protection.
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:46 PM on December 5, 2015

Felidae is really science focused and has a great board of advisors, but is not specifically about tigers. You might be able to ask that your donation go to tiger conservation, but money is fungible. The Wildlife Conservation Society and World Wildlife Fund both have very well run tiger conservation programs, and part of their strength is that they are close collaborators on wild tiger conservation. They work together to prioritize actions. Same as Felidae, they might have a specific donation link to fund tigers but it's unclear how much of that is directly earmarked.
posted by one_bean at 3:25 PM on December 5, 2015

I am a huge fan of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa Florida. Their work is amazing. I was working in Tampa in 2001 and had an opportunity to take their tour. It was fabulous.
posted by Altomentis at 5:31 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I donate to a group called Tigers for Tigers. They are mainly at colleges and universities that have tiger mascots, and they are fiscally partnered with the National Wildlife Refuge Association. They do education on college campuses and with school-age children on conservation and preservation, and they advocate legislation that helps fund wildlife refuges and enforce anti-poaching laws. And a couple of years ago, they started working on programs to educate populations near big endangered animals on managing human-wildlife conflict.
posted by honeybee413 at 5:33 PM on December 5, 2015

I just looked at the Big Cat Rescue website, and you can sponsor a tiger here
posted by Altomentis at 5:38 PM on December 5, 2015

I was going to suggest Big Cat Rescue as well. "Like" their Facebook page, they put out really great videos showing how the cats live and are cared for at their facility. They seem to truly love and care about animals; not only do they rescue cats who can't live in the wild, they also work to raise awareness of the plight of big cats being bred in captivity for entertainment purposes.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 9:59 PM on December 5, 2015

If you want to support an organization that supports tigers and other big cats in the wild, I recommend you take a look at Panthera. I've really been impressed by the variety of projects they support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_Corporation

Here's a summary of their various tiger programs:

https://www.panthera.org/#/cat/tiger

https://www.panthera.org/initiative/tigers-forever

They have five stars on Guidestar.

http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/20-4668756/panthera.aspx

Good luck and may your generosity return a thousand fold upon you.
posted by longdaysjourney at 10:37 AM on December 7, 2015

Oh shoot Panthera was the one I was thinking of, not Felidae! Yeah, Panthera is made up of basically all the big name researchers in big cat conservation around the world, they were all poached from big conservation organizations.

As I'm sure you're aware, cat rescue centers may do good things for individual cats but don't really have any direct impact on whether there will be tigers in the wild in the future.
posted by one_bean at 5:39 PM on December 8, 2015