ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tigers live in jungles, forests and even in the Russian Far East. Sadly, all five surviving subspecies are seriously endangered (see map).



Once tigers roamed freely from eastern Russia to the Black Sea. Now they are confined to small pockets, isolated from other populations and in danger of becoming inbred. It is vital that forest "corridors" are kept open so that they can move freely between areas.

Adults vary in length from 1.4m to 2.8m (including tail) and the largest, the Amur, can weigh over 300kg. Immensely fast and powerful (tiger is classical Greek for arrow), with acute senses and canny hunting skills, the tiger is an awesome predator.

Tigers In Crisis
Poaching: Killing tigers to make so-called "tiger medicines" like tiger bone wine, tiger plasters and aphrodisiacs, is now the biggest threat. None of these cures has any proven medicinal value whatsoever.

The tiger trade, now illegal in most countries, is a fast-growing, multi-million dollar black market run by ruthless criminals supplying a tiny minority of greedy, wealthy individuals, mainly in Far Eastern countries and Chinese communities in the West. Nearly one tiger a day is being killed in India alone - at that rate, the tiger could be virtually extinct within five years.

We don't have a day to lose - we must act now to stop the poachers or our generation will go down in history as the one that watched the tiger die.

Habitat Loss: No less fatal than poaching, to the long-term future of the tiger, is the threat to its habitat from badly-managed development projects and poor farming practice. While much of Asia is struggling to cope with the exploding human population, it is widely accepted that unbridled development will only result in decreasing living conditions and the destruction of Asia's precious, but fast-shrinking, wilderness.

Politics: Incredibly, the tiger was rescued from a similar crisis before - in 1973, trophy hunting and deforestation had reduced India's tigers to about 1,800.

Project Tiger was set up in India and numbers recovered, but the lack of political will today has meant wildlife protection laws have not been enforced and the achievements of the past have been undone. If the tiger is to be saved, India, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and all tiger range governments must stringently enforce protection legislation and CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) which not all of the 14 tiger range countries have signed.