State of Tiger

State of Tiger

By Dr.Fourkan Ali

 Of all the big cats, tigers are closest to extinction. Today, more tigers exist in private holdings in the state of Texas than they do in the wild in Asia.

POPULATION

• Just over 100 years ago, there were as many as 100,000 wild tigers living in Asia. Today, there are fewer than 3,200.

• There are 6 existing subspecies of tigers; three have gone extinct in the last century.

- Existing: Bengal, Indochinese, Sumatran, Siberian, Malayan, South-China (No signs of the South-China subspecies have been found in the wild in the last decade)

- Extinct: Javan (lost in the 1970’s), Caspian (lost in the 1950’s), Bali (lost in the 1930’s)

• Tigers are listed as “Endangered” on the Inter­national Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

DISTRIBUTION

• Tigers no longer live in 93 percent of their historic range.

• Tigers exist in 13 Asian countries.

• Tigers are extinct in 11 countries.

THREATS

• Wild tigers are being hunted to meet the demands of the illegal wildlife trade market. Tiger parts are consumed for traditional medicinal purposes across Asia, with a heavy demand in China.

• International illegal trade in wildlife products is estimated to be a $20 billion a year industry.

• Wild tigers are also persecuted when villagers take retaliatory measures to protect their livestock.

• Tiger habitat is increasingly under threat from agricultural developments, especially monocultures like palm oil plantations.

 • Tiger prey, like deer and wild pigs, have been overhunted. This forces tigers to attack livestock to feed themselves and their cubs, thus fueling human-tiger conflict.

SAVING THE TIGER

• Panthera’s President and CEO, Alan Rabinowitz, created the world’s largest tiger re­serve, the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, in Myanmar (Burma).

• Through Panthera’s Tigers Forever program, in collaboration with Save the Tiger Fund, we are working at key tiger sites in India, Indonesia, Ban­gladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and Nepal to increase tiger numbers by at least 50 percent over 10 years.

• Tigers Forever focuses on addressing the most urgent threats to tigers. Its activities include implementing effective enforcement of protected areas through well-trained park guards (to combat poaching and other illegal activities), protecting and monitoring tiger and prey populations, and securing tiger habitat, so that tigers will live on in the wild, forever.

For more infor

¹ Current research is indicating that the Caspian may not have been a distinct subspecies — and may have been the Siberian or Amur tiger.