big cats
The largest of all the Asian big cats, tigers rely primarily on sight and sound rather than smell for hunting. They typically hunt alone and stalk prey. A tiger can consume up to 88 pounds of meat at one time. On average, tigers give birth to two to four cubs every two years. If all the cubs in one litter die, a second litter may be produced within five months.
Tiger populations once ranged widely across Asia, from the Black Sea in the west, to the Indian Ocean in the south, and from Kolymato Sumatra in the east. Over the past 100 years, the species has lost 93% of its
historic range, and has been extirpated from Westernand Central Asia, from the islands of Java and Bali, and from large areas of Southeast, South, and East Asia.
Today, it ranges from the Siberian taiga to open grasslands and tropical mangrove swamps, and has been classified as endangered in the IUCN Red List. Major reasons for population decline include habitat destruction, habitat
fragmentation and poaching. The extent of area inhabited by tigers is estimated at less
than 1,184,911 km2 (457,497 sq mi), a 41% decline from the area
estimated in the mid-1990s. The global wild population is estimated to number
between 3,062 and 3,948 individuals, down from around 100,000 at the start of
the 20th century, with most remaining populations occurring in small pockets
isolated from each other, in which about 2,000 tigers live on the Indian subcontinent. In 2016, an estimate of a global wild tiger population of approximately 3,890 individuals was
presented during the Third Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation.
The WWF declared that the world's count of wild tigers has
risen for the first time in a century.
