The following breeds of tigers are either endangered or already listed in the Red Book. The Chinese tiger is in the most difficult situation due to the fact that poaching is rampant in the country. The use of tiger's claws and hair in traditional medicine forces criminals from China to continue exterminating rare predators, despite the real risk of the death penalty.
6. Malay tiger
The 250-340 surviving Malay tigers (Panthera tigris jacksoni) - Malaya's national animal - have been classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These animals are found in the forests of the Malay Peninsula. They are smaller in size than Indian tigers.
They hunt a wide variety of game: deer, wild boars, calves, elephants, rhinos and bears. Persecution from habitats and the constant raids of poachers who caught and killed tigers for the preparation of traditional Chinese medicines, as well as for decorative purposes, led to a steady and sharp decline in the number of this subspecies.
A group of non-governmental organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Southeast Asia Movement, the Malaysian Society for Nature and others, have formed an alliance with the Malay Tiger Conservation Union to save animals from extinction.
5. Indochinese tiger
The Indo-Chinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) is endangered. It lives in the Indochina region of Southeast Asia. A hundred years ago, no one could have thought that this particular animal would be on the verge of extinction. Today, only 600-650 individuals remain. They have already become extinct in China, Cambodia and Laos.
There are only 20 individuals left in Vietnam, 85 in Myanmar and about a few hundred in Thailand. These tigers have a distinctive personality, and their incomprehensible lifestyle makes it difficult to study their behavior in detail. They hunt medium to large ungulates in the forest.
Like the Malay tigers, the Indo-Chinese are also threatened by poachers who mercilessly hunt them for the skin, internal organs for the preparation of traditional medicines, and more.
4. Bengal tiger
The royal Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is the only subspecies of tigers, whose numbers increased from 1,706 in 2010 to 2,226 in 2014. This animal is the national animal of India and Bangladesh.
In India, the tiger lives in forests from the foothills of the Himalayas in the north to the landscape of the Western Ghats in the south, including forests in the floodplains of the Ganges and Bhramaputra river systems, the Sundarbans mangroves, forests in West Bengal, the landscape of the Eastern Ghats and the Central Indian highlands.
Small flocks are also found in Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. The destruction of tigers and poaching are the main reasons for the extinction of the subspecies.
3. Amur tiger
Amur or Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) of the Far East (Russia) live in two main areas of the country: in the Sikhote-Alin mountains and the Primorsky province. Since 2005, there has been a slight recovery in the number of animals from 331-393 to 480-540 in 2015, according to information from Primorskaya province.
Amur tigers are well adapted to cold Siberian winters and long distances of up to 1000 km. They hunt musk deer, roe deer, elk, pigs, black and brown bears, and even small hares and fish. At the beginning of the 20th century, a large number of Amur tigers were erased from their habitat due to wars and army occupation.
Hunting for them remained legal until 1947. The government is currently taking tough measures to conserve Siberian tigers and, based on the latest census, there are already small positive results.
2. Sumatran tiger
Clearing forests to equip palm oil plantations and poaching are two major factors leading to the rapid decline in populations of the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae). These animals were found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
It is believed that today the number of individuals varies from 441 to 679. Wild pigs, pheasants, porcupines and sambars are the main prey of these tigers.
1. Chinese tiger
Although the South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is considered endangered, in fact it is already an extinct species, as no sightings of these tigers in the wild have been reported for almost 25 years. These animals were once common in the forests of southern China, but habitat degradation and fragmentation, as well as high rates of poaching, have led to a rapid decline in their numbers in the country.
Today, a small number of tigers are found in captivity in zoos in China and some other countries around the world. Conservation organizations are already working on plans to "recreate" the number of captured Chinese tigers imported into China's reserves.
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