Endangered species
> Tigers |
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| Tiger facts and key issues |
Key issues | Facts
Key issues- Poaching of tigers and tiger prey
All remaining tiger subspecies are under serious threat from poaching, and there is a thriving illegal trade in their bones, skins and organs. Over-hunting of prey species on which the tiger depends can lead to tigers switching to livestock, which increases conflicts with humans. - Traditional Chinese medicine
Tigers are in demand for their body parts - everything from their bones to their organs - for traditional Chinese medicines. Investigators have uncovered a thriving illegal trade out of India and Russia, but the threat is widespread. The US is the biggest market outside Asia for medicines derived from tigers and other species (Source: TRAFFIC) - Habitat fragmentation and loss
In some cases, over-harvesting of non-timber forest products such as grasses, fuelwood, and edible and medicinal plants by local people has left forests standing but bare of under-storey. Forests without undergrowth and prey are of no use to tigers. - Human development
Continuing human development threatens the existence of protected areas. People living in and around reserves or parks often resent the existence of wildlife that threatens their livestock, and this can lead to conflicts with park managers.
Facts- Tiger IUCN status category (Panthera tigris): endangered (2002 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species)
- In the last 100 years, tiger numbers have declined by 95 per cent, from 100,000 to an estimated 5,000 to 7,200 (WWF Tiger Threatened Species Account).
- Three subspecies are already extinct:
- The South China (Amoy) tiger is believed by experts to be extinct in the wild.
- There are four remaining subspecies:
- The Siberian (Amur) tiger is in a critical state, numbering just 366 to 406;
- The Indo-Chinese tiger numbers between 1,220 and 1,785;
- The Sumatran tiger numbers between 400 and 500;
- The Bengal (Indian) tiger numbers between 3,176 and 4,556.
- The tiger is the largest of the cats.
- It has a home range of between 10 and 800 square kilometres, depending on prey density and gender.
- Its survival depends on access to its prey in an ever-decreasing habitat.
- Formerly ranging from eastern Turkey to the Russian Far East and South to Bali and Java, tigers are now found only in fragmented populations in parts of India, South-east Asia, Sumatra and the Russia Far East, with a negligible number in China.
- Tigers now occupy 40 per cent less habitat than they were thought to only a decade ago, and only 7 per cent of their historic range.
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WWF-UK > Research > Issues > Species > Tiger - Facts and key issues
