online.gif Drives Like A Car.  Mercury Villager.
info-l.gif info-r.gif
view


Got a question? Ever wondered about something related to geography? Then ask away here. Every two weeks, Joe Blanton, director of our Research Correspondence division, will post answers to three of the most interesting questions received via e-mail. Unfortunately time constraints preclude individual e-mail responses.
Joe is on assignment in California so Pat McGeehan, a Research Correspondence veteran, is filling in.

Nasty neighbors...

Why do tigers eat people?

Most tigers wisely avoid humans, who have hunted the wild cats for thousands of years. But as the human population grows, farms and villages spring up in Asian forests that used to be tiger habitats. The two species make bad neighbors. In some areas, people have overhunted the deer and other animals that tigers prefer to eat. The endangered cats then feed on livestock—to the despair of impoverished farmers.

It is primarily old, ill, or injured tigers—no longer able to make big kills—that attack and eat humans. (We are easy prey.) The problem is worst in India, where some 50 people are killed by tigers each year. People kill tigers—man-eaters and otherwise—in retaliation, in pursuit of bounties, and for the illegal sale of furs, teeth, and claws.

A friend says that there is a country that has both a summer and a winter capital. I can’t think of it. Help!

Your friend is probably thinking of South Africa, which actually has three capitals: Pretoria (administrative), Cape Town (legislative), and Bloemfontein (judicial).

South African cabinet ministers are drawn from the parliament, so these officials work in both Pretoria and Cape Town. They are in Cape Town when parliament convenes around the beginning of February and trek some 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) to Pretoria at the end of the session, which is usually at least five months later. President Nelson Mandela and his staff migrate as well, for the sake of proximity. Practically speaking, Cape Town is South Africa’s summer capital, Pretoria its winter capital. (South of the Equator, summer begins in December.)

Is there any way to buy previously published Society maps? One in particular is the moon map featured on the wall of Lou Grant’s office on the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

It was an odd decorating choice when Lou Grant hung “The Earth’s Moon” on his office wall; in early episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore Show there had been a window in the same spot! Mr. Grant isn’t the only TV character to put National Geographic publications on display. We’ve seen shelves of our yellow-edged magazines on Seinfeld and Mad About You. Years ago we spotted NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC on One Day at a Time.

The magazine has hit the big screen too. The Bridges of Madison County featured a (fictional!) National Geographic photographer. Then there are cameos in It’s a Wonderful Life, Apollo 13, Beetlejuice, and Waterworld, to name a few. Giant bugs discussed the National Geographic Society in James and the Giant Peach. In Twilight Zone: The Movie, Albert Brooks enriched (?) the wordless National Geographic Television theme—we call it the fanfare—by improvising lyrics.

But you asked a question.

A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC supplement is available if the issue with which it appeared is still in print. Lou Grant’s wall decoration was in the February 1969 issue, which is still available. If you don’t know the date of an issue, try our NGS Publications Index. Issues printed before 1940 are not yet available from the NGS Store, but our customer service operators will be happy to help you. (Call 800 NGS LINE from the U.S. or Canada.)