--- title: >- Known by Their Stripes date: 2026-09-22 13:00:00 modified: 2026-09-22 14:08:30 lang: pl authors: Piotr Pelica url: https://pelica.net/pl/known-by-their-stripes tags: - animals - photography - zoo - wildlife - tigers status: published --- # Known by Their Stripes "Oh, bloody move," I mumbled, stuck behind a Fiesta on a winding backroad. We had just passed a cyclist, barely. I don't even know why I was in such a rush; the event didn't start for another 20 minutes. It was Saturday and I was on my way to Hamerton Zoo. I arrived twelve minutes early and within five I was already regretting leaving the climate-controlled cabin of my car. It was hot already and it was about to get even hotter. My usual routine passes quickly now - out of the car, change shoes, put on a cap, grab the backpack with the camera in it. I wanted to be fast, no, needed to be fast - I wanted to be one of the first people in the queue, so I could avoid the crowds these events tend to draw. I succeeded, more or less, as there were just a few people in front of me, and soon a few behind me. I started taking my camera out of the backpack, fully expecting a wait - it was about ten minutes before the till opened - when I noticed I wasn't the only photographer in the queue, and in that moment I suddenly felt incredibly underprepared. I was there with my 55-250mm lens and the people around me... I had only ever seen that kind of lens owned by hardcore birdwatchers - the ones where it's "your lens has a nice camera body", not the other way around. One of them was as large as my thigh. My self-pity was interrupted by a zookeeper opening up the gates a few minutes early, which was a nice surprise. I flashed my pass and got waved through with a smile. The next few steps were simple - turn the camera on, select my custom wildlife preset, get through the inner door and skip towards the maned wolves - left, past the play area, right at the parrots, say hi to Lela, skip past the dingoes and land right at the enclosure. They usually get fed at 10 am, so I was looking forward to seeing Bali, Boone and Zorro... only to find none of them were out. Just the tree, dry grass and the window full of fingerprints. I watched for them as people passed me on their way to the tigers. I was disappointed, not yet connecting their absence with the heat. "But it's not a maned wolf day, Peter, it's a Tiger Day," I thought to myself. *** "*International Tiger Day* was established in 2010 to raise awareness for endangered tiger populations," my screen displayed, and I nodded like I knew what I was doing. I had only just learned it existed via a Facebook post announcing the event - from one of the zoos I'm a regular at. It was pure luck; normally I don't even go on the site. I closed the tab and there was a ping waiting for me - the algorithm had picked up on my clicks already and sent me the "event you might be interested in nearby" notification. Of course. Now I had two events at two zoos I had annual passes for - and I had them in my calendar by the end of the day. *** "Ugh, hot," I thought as I left the tunnel leading from the maned wolf enclosure to the tigers. I looked over and it was... a lot. Both sides were occupied by photographers leaning against the fence, setting up their tripods or chancing it handheld. The tables in between were full of kids, there were prams everywhere, the general racket of people turned into white noise, and I wasn't sure whether I was at a zoo or at a festival. The poor zookeeper tried to avoid the crowd by pretending to set up the speaker for the fifth time since I'd first spotted him. I squeezed myself into a spot, careful not to sweat on anyone. This was far from a typical day at Hamerton, even for a Saturday. Mohan, however, didn't seem to mind the heat or the crowds. ![Mohan appreciated the enrichment](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5096-6ab24776d7d50.jpg) He's a 13-year-old Bengal tiger, and white tigers are rare - there aren't many reports of one ever turning up in the wild. The keeper, who'd just started the day's talk, put it more simply: "A big white bloke like that isn't going to be able to survive very well in the jungle." The crowd finally went quiet, thank God, and Mohan ignored us completely, absorbed by the camel fur hidden inside the blue barrel. I raised my camera to take the shot, and so did every other photographer - including a couple in their eighties, whom I initially dismissed as "aww, cute", until the guy pulled a bazooka of a lens out of his wife's wheelchair bag. So here I was, in my paparazzi era, except my subject wasn't a celebrity but an animal. Every time the tiger moved, the shutters rattled, which was both intimidating and reassuring - once I realised I was doing exactly what every other photographer was doing. We all seemed to share the same single brain cell: the same moments, the same reflexes, even the same apologetic shuffle - "ah, no, sorry, don't worry, I'll move out of your way." And once that sank in, I found myself tracking the photographers rather than the tiger - watching for cameras going up and following where they pointed, instead of straining to keep my eyes on a stationary animal in nearly thirty-degree heat. ![](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5207-6ab24a8fe778e.jpg) ![](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5175-6ab24a927a186.jpg) ![](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5052-6ab24a94970ba.jpg) The keeper moved on to the Malayan tigers, and so did we. Perhaps less striking on the surface, but even rarer - [fewer than 120 are thought to remain in the wild](https://www.facebook.com/hamertonzoo/posts/pfbid021ncfL9RetUNQPSu3ibB2MpPBHFpi9uAGPeE4Cq933bmPm32x5oo6hJCTxCpfA6Mcl), and Hamerton's pair are the only ones in the country. On top of that, I learned that the male had arrived barely nine days earlier, so he was still getting used to the enclosure. "What a welcome," I thought at first, but Bulan, who had come from the Czech Republic, was walking around the enclosure, which isn't something I'd expect from a new arrival. Sahaja, on the other hand, instead of hiding behind three layers of fence, decided to go even deeper, which elevated taking photos of her from frustrating to impossible. ![Bulan, the new arrival, was pacing around the enclosure](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5266-6ab247dd90b02.jpg) Soon enough even the brave tiger had retreated into the shade, and we were just standing there, waiting for something to happen. Boredom beat my shyness and I decided to ask the question: "Hey, sorry to be a bother, but I know that if I don't ask I'll regret it later... and in fact I might regret asking it anyway, but - how big and how much?" I was immediately encouraged by genuine laughter and discouraged by the answer - 200 to 800mm and roughly two to three grand, second-hand. Oh. A few minutes of swapping zoo recommendations later, I decided to move on, as it didn't seem that any animal would come out again. On the slim chance I might see them, I went back past the maned wolf enclosure - and imagine my surprise when I saw Bali practically waiting for someone to come through. ![I think this is the sharpest photo of Bali I've taken so far](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5422-6ab247ee681dd.jpg) As I neared the exit, I noticed the cake stand I'd completely missed on my way in. A sign said everything raised from it, and from the raffle, would go to the WildCats Conservation Alliance, to help tigers in the wild. At the time I didn't give the name a second thought. ## Shepreth Okay. 29th of July. Wednesday. The *actual* Tiger Day. How come I was stuck in the car again? Here I was, 9:48 am, despite roadworks and road closures, seeing the Wildlife Park's gate closed for the first time ever. Typically it's open by then and we all just queue next to the front door, waving at the keepers coming in through the staff entrance. Nope. Stuck in the queue, two cars in front, okay. I hung back from the car ahead, leaving room for anyone trying to squeeze past into the side road. And then, out of nowhere, *three* cars decided to cut in front of me, straight into the gap I'd left! Like, excuse me, you practically drove into me just to get through the gate five seconds earlier. An eye roll, two huffs and three tuts later, a staff member opened the main gate. I parked in one of my usual spots and then - shoes, cap, backpack... A quick conversation at the register and I learned that there was going to be a talk at the Education Centre at 2:30 pm. I deleted the 2:00 pm alarm, set a new one, dug out the camera and skipped towards the maned wolves. ![Yeah, me too Kanassa, me too](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5564-6ab2480f8484f.jpg) Well, with thirty-two degrees forecast for the day, I couldn't exactly blame Kanassa for deciding to just lie in the bushes all day. Or Remus, who simply bet on not leaving the confines of the cool building... but then again, that's so typical of him; he's been like that since I first met him at Banham. Trying not to get discouraged, I struck up a conversation with one of the keepers, mostly asking whether she thought Kelabu, Shepreth's 18-year-old Sumatran tiger, and her tongue would show up. We exchanged some details about the animals, laughed at how a 90 kg predator like Kelabu just walks around with her tongue out all day, and I reassured her that Zorro, Kanassa's pup, all grown up now, is doing great at Hamerton. The keeper noticed the camera, I mentioned my photos, she was interested in seeing them, so I pulled them up on my phone... and that's when she said, "Oh, so you're a frequent flyer, then?" Oh. It was a weird feeling - I felt a little intimidated, perhaps a bit embarrassed, but mostly, I felt recognised. She was right - I'd been going around two zoological gardens, calling animals by their names, talking to random people and sharing details about animals one could only know by actually spending time with them. I ended up buying [some of her art prints](https://larlroseart.com/), sold for charity. Worried they'd get mangled in my backpack, I decided to drop them off in the car. I'd rehearsed my speech on the way - "Sorry, I know the rules say once you leave you can't come back, but I don't want to crumple these, could I just pop them in my car?" - and never got to use it. The staff member just waved me through: "Oh, hi, it's you. Go ahead." The midday talk on what zookeepers actually do turned out to be mostly for the kids, who took turns weighing and "feeding" a plush tiger. I'm glad I stuck around, because the end was the interesting part - the keeper talking about the perks of the job, one of them being that you really get to know the animals. The example that stuck: Kelabu reacts best to Calvin Klein Obsession. I walked back towards her enclosure, and on my way I popped into the Education Centre to refill my water bottle - those refill points, installed to raise awareness of plastic use, turned out to be the thing that got me through the 32-degree heat. Another thing I noticed was that the sign said 2:15 pm for the talk. "Oh, they must've updated it," I thought, and changed my alarm yet again. I went out and walked around the tiger enclosure, but Kelabu had decided it was too hot outside and just sat inside the cool concrete building. ![Kelabu was definitely done with the weather](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5642-6ab2497482a4f.jpg) I tried my best - leaned over, put the hard plastic lens hood against the glass, arms around it to cut the reflections... but it was dark, I was shooting handheld, Kelabu was moving, and the window here made the fingerprinted one at Hamerton's maned wolf enclosure look pristine. Soon after, my alarm went off and I headed back to the Education Centre to take a seat. The building doesn't have air conditioning, but being out of direct sunlight did something, at least. 2:15 pm on the dot and the building was... empty. "I guess we're running late," I thought. Five minutes, ten, fifteen... 2:30 pm and people had only just started to gather. This isn't a cinema, there's no half an hour of ads first, right? So, let's recap - Facebook said 2:00 pm, the lady at the till said 2:30 pm, the sign said 2:15 pm, and in the end we started at... 2:40 pm. At least I had 25 minutes of just sitting around, cooling off a little, I guess. I knew we were starting when a whole section of the building filled up with zookeepers. Soon the presentation began, and I was a tiny bit disappointed that there was no microphone or speakers - I would've sat closer. The lady introduced herself as Esther Conway, and it didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time. She talked about Sumatra, where most of the island has been turned into plantations and the tigers were left with a strip of mountains down the middle, only because it was too steep to farm. Somewhere in that strip is a national park whose name I didn't catch, patrolled by rangers who walk it on foot for five days at a time, carrying everything they need. There are no roads. If someone gets hurt, they have to be carried out, because there's nowhere to land a helicopter. Recently, she said, US funding cuts had hit their work, so the patrol team and the monitoring team had started lending each other staff just to keep going. And then, almost in passing: that morning, for Global Tiger Day, something had been posted online about two young tigers in the park, almost adults, that nobody had ever seen before. They knew they were new because every tiger's stripes are unique - photograph both sides and you can match them against a database, just like a fingerprint. At the end, a kid asked if tigers like it in the zoo. Conway said yes - they're safe, they're fed, and they get to look out at all the kids looking at them. I waited until the crowd thinned out and went up to her. "Hello, hi, sorry-" "No, don't apologise. I'm really happy to talk to anyone." I asked whether they knew anything more about the young ones. She didn't, to be honest - busy day, and the post had only come out that morning. There was a whole article attached, she said, on something like "Munga Bay, Indonesia", and it was easy to translate. I thanked her, made a note of it, and went back out into the heat. The rest of the day went quickly. I noticed a little bit of Kelabu sticking out from between the bushes - I guess the building had become too hot - but it wasn't enough for a photo. I realised she wasn't going to move, so I decided to call it a day. Walking back past the maned wolves, I caught part of a keeper's conversation with someone - "[…] she's older, he's younger, they don't interact much" - and smiled, as it was exactly what I'd noticed. ![For the record - this doesn't count as 'enough for a photo'](https://cdn2.pelica.net/posts/knownbytheirstripes/IMG-5704-6ab2512bdcd54.jpg) ## The Aftermath I got back to my car, changed my shoes and did a little "ow, ow, ow, ow" - my watch said I'd done 8,500 steps, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it had been the fifth day of walking in a row. The drive home was quick; I made it onto the M11 just before rush hour. Card in the reader, photos copying over, and me already trying to figure out what "Munga Bay" was. It took me an embarrassing amount of digging to find out that it was *Mongabay*, an environmental news organisation, and then even more digging to find that the article Conway mentioned wasn't even there, but on [the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry's website](https://www.kehutanan.go.id/pers/anak-harimau-sumatra-yang-terdeteksi-pada-tahun-2025-kembali-terpantau-tumbuh-sehat-di-alam-liar). "Who's Esther Conway anyway?" I thought, and looked her up. Oh. And then it all made sense - she's *the Manager* of the WildCats Conservation Alliance, the organisation that had been in the background of all of this. It's ZSL's tiger programme, running since 1997, with over £5 million raised for projects across five countries. And I'd asked her about the young ones like she was a keeper who might have read something online. I'd been a bit disappointed to learn that the park had raised [only £195.76 on the day](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1961970451159582/). Then, going back over my notes from the talk, I found the other number: Conway had thanked Shepreth for raising over £54,000 for the Alliance over the years. And most of the Alliance's money, she'd said, comes from zoos - from cake stands and raffles and art prints and people like me turning up on a Wednesday. Which brings me back to the Ministry of Forestry's page, and the two young tigers. They weren't new after all. A camera trap in Kerinci Seblat - the park whose name I hadn't caught - first picked them up as cubs in September 2025. This year they turned up on camera again, healthy and nearly grown. The park team and a local conservation foundation knew it was the same two because they'd matched their stripes - exactly as Conway had described. The ministry treated it as a sign that protecting the forest is working. Two cubs, somewhere on that steep spine of mountains, made it to almost adulthood. I'll never see them. Honestly, good - I'd be lunch.