Lest not forget, why I wrote the title “Later that day, Tigers were around.”. It’s simple. Tigers always calm. No matter how they saw their prey, they wouldn’t get excited or get hyped, they’re just sitting there, approaching their prey, and finally, landed a critical hit that made the prey breathless in a moment.  For some reason, even when agitated, tigers always scream or attacked back. Tigers never show any compassion to a total stranger. But when you know its true nature, you’ll made a best friend with a huge cat.

Same goes for me. I met a tiger. In fact, I am a tiger. I always went on and on about how I interpretate life in a different way, and this time, it’s tiger. I dunno, but I think I got myself a discreet yet deadly personality. For some reason people will get really hurt, at the end I will apologize either way. Tigers are me.

Well enough with my rambling, and you know why?

I DONT EVEN KNOW WHEN THIS STARTED. GO TIGERS.

Larasya Maitri Anjani
XI IPA 2

80 percent of the students interviewed said that they know only little about the endangered species. 13,33 percent of the students interviewed said that they know much about the endangered species. The rest 20 percent of the students know nothing of the endangered species. The majority of the students, however, have seen at least one endangered animal. About 45 percent of the students have not seen any, yet. For only about 27 percent of the students has already acted to help the cause. The majority of the students, have not.

Some of the students made very interesting comments. We asked them, “What would you do to help the cause if you had the chance to be the governor for a day?”, one of them answered that she would espouse each species so they would have descendants. Usually, a typical answer was “I would make a whole new and advanced Wildlife Reserve place to save them”. One of the students also answered that she would use the tax firm from the Indonesian Citizens to preserve their habitat.

We must say that we were quite surprised by the outcome of the survey. Some of the answers was predictable, yes- but also some of it were very new and different. It was very interesting to carry out the survey because it surprised us with new ideas.

Fast Facts

Type:

Mammal

Diet:

Herbivore

Average life span in the wild:

3 to 4 years

Size:

Head and body, 12 to 15 in (30 to 38 cm); tail, 3 to 4 in (8 to 10 cm)

Weight:

2 to 4 lbs (1 to 2 kg)

Group name:

Prairie dog town

Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:

These charismatic, rabbit-size rodents live on North America’s prairies and open grasslands in only a fraction of their former numbers.

Prairie dogs live in underground burrows, extensive warrens of tunnels and chambers marked by many mounds of packed earth at their surface entrances. Burrows have defined nurseries, sleeping quarters, and even toilets. They also feature listening posts near exits, so animals can safely keep tabs on the movements of predators outside. Prairie dogs spend a lot of time building and rebuilding these dwellings. Other animals benefit from their labors. Burrows may be shared by snakes, burrowing owls, and even rare black-footed ferrets, which hunt prairie dogs in their own dwellings.

Family groups (a male, a few females, and their young) inhabit burrows and cooperate to share food, chase off other prairie dogs, and groom one another. These group members even greet one another with a prairie dog kiss or nuzzle. Young pups are very playful and can often been seen romping near their burrows.

Black-tailed prairie dogs, the best known of the five prairie dog species, live in larger communities called towns, which may contain many hundreds of animals. Typically they cover less than half a square mile (1.3 square kilometers), but some have been enormous. The largest recorded prairie dog town covered some 25,000 square miles (65,000 square kilometers). That Texas town was home to perhaps four hundred million prairie dogs.

Another prairie dog species, the white-tailed prairie dog, lives in the western mountains. These rodents do not gather in large towns but maintain more scattered burrows. All species hunker down in winter and burn the reserves of fat they have stored during more plentiful seasons. White-tails may hibernate for up to six months on their mountain plains, while their black-tailed cousins sometimes emerge to feed on especially warm days.

These large squirrels emerge from their burrows in daylight to forage and feed on grasses, roots, and seeds. They communicate with loud cries. A warning cry, for example, will send a town’s denizens hustling to their holes at the approach of a badger, coyote, or other predator. A second, “all-clear” call alerts the community when the danger has passed.

Much of the Great Plains has been converted to farming or pastureland, and prairie dogs are not often welcome in such places. Because of their destructive landscaping, they are often killed as pests. During the 20th century, about 98 percent of all prairie dogs were exterminated, and their range has shrunk to perhaps five percent of its historic spread.

Well, have you? Oh, well. It’s all in all a great movie.

So anyways, that’s not what we’re going to discuss here (the movie, we mean). What we’re going to talk about though, is the main character of the film itself, which is an owl. Specifically, Tyto alba.
We’ve grown a huge interest in owls since we were little (no, really. all 4 of us). We think they’re magnificent, with its head that can swirl around nearly in 360 degrees vertically (yep, you read that right), and their ability to sleep when the sun rises, and wake up when the moon is shining. It’s quite interesting, actually.

Tyto alba, or more commonly known as the Barn Owl (which, in our opinion is less cooler than their Latin name) has made a huge population among the Owl species, covering about 60% of them. It’s widely distributed around the world, mostly in Indonesia. A Barn Owl itself is categorized into many sub-species, but this time we will only describe them in general.

Derived from Wikipedia, here it goes:

The Barn Owl is a pale, long-winged, long-legged owl with a short squarish tail. Depending on subspecies, it measures about 25–45 cm (9.8–18 in) in overall length, with a wingspan of some 75–110 cm (30–43 in). Tail shape is a way of distinguishing the Barn Owl from true owls when seen in flight, as are the wavering motions and the open dangling feathered legs. The light face with its heart shape and the black eyes give the flying bird an odd and startling appearance, like a flat mask with oversized oblique black eyeslits, the ridge of feathers above the bill somewhat resembling a nose.

Its head and upper body typically vary between a light brown and a dark gray (especially on the forehead and back) feathers in most subspecies. Some are purer, richer brown instead, and all have fine black-and-white speckles except on the remiges and rectrices, which are light brown with darker bands. The heart-shaped face is usually bright white, but in some subspecies it is browner. The underparts (including the tarsometatarsus feathers) vary from white to reddish buff among the subspecies, and are either mostly plain or bear a varying amount of tiny blackish-brown speckles. It was found that at least in the continental European populations, females with more spotting are healthier on average. This does not hold true for European males by contrast, where the spotting varies according to subspecies. The bill varies from pale horn to dark buff, corresponding to the general plumage hue. The iris is blackish brown. The toes, as the bill, vary in color; their color ranges from pinkish to dark pinkish-gray. The talons are usually black.

At this point you may wondering why they called “Barn Owls”. These owls made nest near barns, or inside the barn itself. Barn owls bear no harm to the farm animals, but the farmer tends to kill them because they think they will disturb the animals’ sleep. Farmers sometimes even made special nests for them, creating a hole in the roof of the barn (pictured above). These holes were called uhlenloch.

Here is where the interesting part comes in. As we might know already, owls has never been reported attacking humans nor stealing humans’ belongings. But the barn owl is considered a bad omen for some people. They believe, that if a barn owl was flying in a flock to the west, then something bad is happening on a certain side of the world. This is merely a simple belief, but it has to stop. Why? Because owls would never do any harm, so why consider them as a bad omen? In fact, barn owls do help us in some things we tend to forget. Such as plucking berries, eating small animals that is considered to be some sort of plague to the crop fields, etc etc.

So let those owls take flight into the air. We humans must set them free, and let them do what they deserve to do. Owls are somewhat off of this world, but they’re never forgotten. They are very popular as “creatures of the night”, anyways.

So, take flight! Goodbye!

Anindita W.P.

Arief Yunianto

Larasya Maitri A.

Yuscha Anindya