Lily (Photographed by Gina Giulekas)
Recognized throughout the world for its ferocity and unmistakable beauty, the tiger faces an uncertain future. Due to increases in both natural and human threats, the wild tiger population suffered major losses during the 20th century and has become one of our most endangered species. By the 1950s, tigers living around the Caspian Sea were extinct; between 1937 and 1972 the population of tigers that once inhabited the islands of Bali and Java disappeared; the South China tiger, with at best 20 to 30 individuals, is nearly extinct in the wild.
India today has the largest number of tigers, numbering somewhere between 3,030 and 4,735 and it is estimated that only 5,100 to 7,500 individual tigers now remain in the entire world. These remaining tigers are threatened by many factors, including growing human populations, loss of habitat, illegal hunting of tigers and the species they hunt, and expanded trade in tiger parts used for traditional medicines.
Three tiger subspecies - the Bali, Javan, and Caspian - have become extinct in the past 70 years. The five remaining subspecies - Amur, Bengal, Indochinese, South China, and Sumatran - live only in Asia, and all are threatened by poaching and habitat loss.
The largest of all cats, the tiger is one of the biggest and most fearsome predators in the world. Tigers can travel long distances and bound up to 30 feet in one leap.
Tigers are distinctively camouflaged with their gold coloring and black stripes. Their fierce retractile claws and powerful bodies put tigers at the top of the food chain - they eat just about anything and nothing eats them.
Tiger Range - past and present
(retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tiger_map.jpg on 02.02.10)
Tigers are solitary animals and usually come together only to mate. Occasionally, however, small groups of related adults may associate. Mating can occur at any time and typically produces litters with two or three cubs. Cubs stay with their mother for about two years, as early life is dangerous. One half of all cubs born don't survive to their third year. Living fairly secretive lives, the remaining tigers can be found across the continent of Asia in variety of environments including forests, grasslands and swamps. Tigers seem to thrive in areas of dense vegetation with numerous sources of water and large populations of ungulate prey.
Three of the eight tiger subspecies (the Bali, Javan and Caspian) have become extinct in the past 70 years, and others may be facing the same fate with only 5,100 to 7,500 individual tigers remaining in the wild. Although it is one the most magnificent and revered animals, the tiger is listed as "endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and is also listed on CITES Appendix I, which makes trading of live cats or cat parts (i.e., fur, bones and meat) illegal in signatory countries.
Amur (Siberian) Tigers
Panthera tigris altaica
The Amur, or Siberian, is the largest of the five remaining tiger subspecies. They live primarily in the coniferous, scrub oak, and birch woodlands of eastern Russia, with a few tigers found in northeastern China and northern North Korea. It is estimated that only 350-400 still survive in the wild while many more currently live in captivity.
In 1992 Russia gave the Amur tiger protected status, and land was protected in their habitat, The Sikhote Alin, Lazousky, and Kedrovaya Pad Reserve.
Zeus
