Start a conversation about big cats with Cougar Mountain Zoo general curator, Robyn Barfoot, and you quickly learn how passionate she is about tiger conservation – and all wildlife in general.

Barfoot will leave Saturday for a three-week trip to India to promote conservation of these magnificent cats, and bring that knowledge back to the patrons of the zoo.

India holds over 1,700 tigers, about half the world’s tiger population. Nepal and Bangladesh are also home to tigers.

This is not her first time to India – and the zoo does not pay for her trip. Barfoot, who received her degree in biology with an emphasis in wildlife conservation from Arizona State University, made the journey two years ago after meeting her now good friend, Danita Daniel, who lives in India. Daniel, who works on tiger conservation in India, came to Issaquah a few years ago to meet Barfoot after learning that the small zoo had acquired four tigers.

“We instantly clicked,” Barfoot said.

They both have passion for tigers and how they can save them from becoming an extinct species.

“We’ve lost 97 percent of the tiger population in the wild in the last 100 years, due to illegal hunting of tigers,” Barfoot said. “There were nine sub-species 100 years ago, now there are six.”

One sub-species, the North China Tiger, only exists in captivity and there are only 30 of them remaining, Barfoot said.

The tiger is valued, particularly by the Chinese, for traditional Chinese medicines. They use the entire animal – whiskers, bones, everything – to make various “cures” for various ailments, none of which have been scientifically proven to work, according to Barfoot, but it’s hard to change traditions that have carried on for years, she added.

An undercover investigation by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in 2005 revealed that the trade in tiger and leopard body parts in China continues to thrive, operating without any hindrance from the Chinese government while driving India’s wild tigers closer towards extinction.

Barfoot said there is even a huge black market for tiger parts in San Francisco, where they use tiger for everything from aphrodisiacs to body creams.

“The only way to save the tiger is to educate people,” Barfoot said. “The zoo’s purpose is to educate the public that tigers are endangered.”

There are several tiger preserves in India, which are protected on three sides, Barfoot said. The fourth side is left open to encourage genetic diversity, but once a tiger is on the outside, they are not safe from their only predator – man. She said sometimes there is even corruption inside the preserves, since the people are poor and realize they can get a substantial amount of money for a tiger.

On this trip, she will visit a couple of the preserves and give lectures to college students in Bangladesh on what they can do to help.

“These students are fighting for the animals in their country,” Barfoot said.

She also will address 17 villages and 500 children, educating them on the plight of the tiger, and teaching the kids how to “chuff,” the sound tigers make to greet each other or humans that they know. Barfoot chuffed at a Tiger in the wild the last time in India, and it responded.

“These kids are the future conservationists,” she said.

Barfoot and Daniel also will meet with the past and current directors of Project Tiger, based in India, which aims at ensuring a viable population of Bengal tigers in their natural habitats.

They will take a side trip to the Sasan region, the sole home of pure Asiatic lions. Barfoot said they were hunted almost to extinction in the early 1900s, and now there are only 300 left. Finally, they will make a stop in Mumbai before wrapping up in the Kanha tiger preserve.

Barfoot has been at the Cougar Mountain Zoo seven years, and in the zoo business for 16. Big cats are her specialty, with tigers her focal point. The zoo has four Bengal tigers, all males, that it got as cubs from other zoos. Vitez and Bagheera, born in 2009, are brothers and share a habitat. Taj and Almos, born in 2007, are three weeks apart in age and grew up together in their habitat. The four can’t be all together or they might get into a fight.

At home, she has two domestic felines, aged 11 and 15, that she rescued.

Barfoot is eager to share her experiences with zoo visitors when she returns. She also would like to see kids in India be able to Skype with students here, to share their ideas on tiger conservation.

“We’re combining our cultures with a common goal,” she said. “It’s so important for them to stay on earth. Carnivores are essential to the circle of life.”

If you’d like to help with the plight of the tigers, Barfoot recommended Panthera.org, a grassroots organization, which focuses on saving wild cat species across the globe.

“Instead of going to Starbucks once a month, sent $5 to India,” Barfoot said said.

Robyn Barfoot cuddling with Almos, a White Bengal Tiger, at 2 1/2-months-old.