While poaching and illegal trading remain the biggest direct threat to the wild tiger population there are other causes to the depleting number. Loss of habitat, tigers have lost 95% of their habitat to human activities. For the human population to expand and thrive, animals pay the price by losing their homes.
Climate change which has caused the sea level to rise has led the mangroves of Sundarbans to be destroyed, hence wiping out the species of tigers unique to the Sundarbans. According to a WWF, by 2070 nearly the entire Sundarbans tiger habitat could be destroyed if there are no effort to mitigate climate change.”
Estimates by WWF indicate that there are more than 8,000 tigers being held in more than 200 centers in East and Southeast Asia, with roughly three-quarters of these tigers located in China and in the United States there are 5,000 captive tigers. These tigers cannot be rescued or reintroduced into the wild as captive tigers lack the competence to survive in the wild.
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On Tuesday, the Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, released the fourth All India Tiger Estimation 2018 report and said that India was ready to take leadership role to work with other tiger range countries. "In 1973, there were just nine tiger reserves which has now increased to 50. It is important to know that none of these reserves is poor quality.
Despite India's constraint of 2.5 per cent of global land, four per cent of rainfall and 16 per cent of world's human population, India is home to eight per cent of world's biodiversity which includes 70 per cent of world's tiger population," said Javadekar in a report by PTI.
Here are some interesting facts about tigers
- Unlike most cats, Tigers love swimming and playing in water. Tigers can swim for several kilometres, it was reported that one tiger swam upto 30 kms in a day!
- Tigers live up to 25 years. The usual life expectancy of a tiger is between 20 and 25 years whether they are in captivity or in the wild.
- Under captivity, Tigers could mate with other big cat species such as the lion. These hybrids are often called ligers or tigons. Ligers come from female tigers whereas tigons come from female lions. These hybrids are unnatural and often suffer from organ failure and neurological obesity.
- Almost 100 years ago, Tigers could be found all over Asia, but due to constant hunting and loss of habitat the population depleted slowly.
- Tiger stripes are like fingerprints, no two Tigers have the same pattern of stripes.
- A tiger’s punch can kill you and they can run as fast as 65kms/hr.