Tigers destroyed by poaching
Published: 31 August 2009
Only about 4,000 tigers remain in the wild, scattered across forests stretching from India to the Russian Far East.
Tigers are poisoned, shot, trapped and snared, and the majority of these animals are sought to meet the demands of a continuing illegal wildlife trade.
Hunters, traders, and poor local residents whose main means of subsistence comes from the forest, are wiping out the tiger and the natural prey upon which it depends.
Loss of habitat and the depletion of the tiger's natural prey is also a factor of the animal's decline. Large commercial plantations have replaced a lot of tiger habitat in several tropical range countries.
The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) has a conservation and strategy action plan which aims to combat the declining numbers.