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  Tigers

A century ago tigers ranged through much of Asia. Killed by hunters and driven from their habitat by farmers and timber cutters, their numbers have decreased rapidly. Though they are protected as an endangered species, tigers are still shot for sport and for their skins. They are also poached for their bones, claws, whiskers, and other body parts. In some parts of Asia tonics derived from tiger parts are believed to increase longevity, strength, and courage.

tiger

All tigers belong to the same species, Panthera tigris. Several subspecies—the Caspian, Balinese, and Javan tigers—are gone forever. India’s Bengal tiger population fell some 95 percent between 1930, when the nation may have been home to 40,000 tigers, and 1972, when there were fewer than 2,000. Thanks to protection measures and tiger reserves, India’s tiger population has approximately doubled since the 1970s. Still the tiger’s chances for survival in the wild are precarious. Without effective long-term protection tigers could disappear from their natural habitat in the next decade.

Tigers generally prefer large wild prey. Some favorites: pigs, deer, antelope, buffalo, and wild cattle called gaur. Some tigers even attack elephants. Tigers also snack on smaller animals like monkeys, birds, frogs—even porcupines. Patiently, without a sound, the tiger watches, stalks, and attacks. A tiger can take 30-foot (nine-meter) leaps to bring down its prey, which it asphyxiates by holding the animal down and biting its neck. The tiger drags its kill—which may outweigh it by hundreds of pounds—to a favorable feeding spot near water. Guarding, feasting, napping, the tiger stays for days, leaving nothing but the animal’s bones and stomach.

Despite the tiger’s speed and strength, it only succeeds in killing perhaps one in twenty of its intended victims. To save its strength an older tiger may walk under a tree full of chattering monkeys and let out a sudden roar. The awesome noise—which may carry for two miles—usually frightens at least one monkey from its perch into the jaws of the tiger.

With the human population expanding into tiger territory, livestock sometimes becomes a tiger meal, to the annoyance of impoverished farmers. Though most tigers avoid people, ill or injured tigers, no longer able to make bigger kills, have attacked humans. At least 50 people are killed by tigers each year.

All tigers prefer the cover of forest, and each subspecies is adapted to its own habitat, whether the forest is in tropical Sumatra or frozen Siberia. The remaining subspecies are:

Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris)
Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti)
Chinese tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis)
Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica)
Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae)

The beautiful and popular white tiger is actually a mutated strain of Bengal tiger. Rare but widely bred in captivity, all captive white tigers are descended from a male named Mohan, captured in northern India in 1951.