Eyes of the Tiger

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Eyes of the Tiger

• Yu Peng Lee
• OHS, Period 5

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Species of Tigers
There are 5 known subspecies of tigers. They are
the Amur (Siberian), Bengal, Indochinese, South
China, and Sumatran. There are also three other
known subspecies of tigers of which are extinct
the Bali, Javan, and Caspian.
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Habitat
These map shows the remaining tigers in the whole
world. They are all located in Asia. The green
shaded areas are the remaining tigers left in the
world.
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Breeding
Although there is no set mating season for
tigers, breeding occurs in the spring. The male
may stay with the female for 20-80 days during
this period, and then returns to its territory,
never taking part in the rearing of the cubs.
Gestation period is typically about 15 weeks.The
female tiger, or tigris, can deliver several
litters over her lifetime. Litter size ranges
from 1 to 6, although rarely more than 2 or 3
survive. The cubs nurse for about 2 months, learn
to hunt after about 11 months, and spend the
first two years of their lives with their mother,
before going out on their own. At this point, the
mother will be ready to mate again, but if no
cubs survived to maturity, the mother can mate
again after 5 months. A mother is ultimately
successful if two cubs survive to maturity.
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Population
As what the chart shows, the tiger population
dropped over the past 100 years by a factor of 25
- from an estimated 100,000 in 1900 to only 4000
in the 1970's. A concerted effort by wildlife
protection groups in the 1970's halted their
rapid demise and the global population of tigers
in the wild has grown modestly to around 6000 at
the turn of the century. Poaching continues to
this day, however. When a Russian poacher can
make as much from a single tiger kill as he would
normally earn in 6 years, it will take more than
words to halt this tragedy.
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Endangerment
Poaching Even though it is illegal to kill a
tiger, wild tigers are still being poached today
because their bones, whiskers and other body
parts can be sold on the black market for a lot
of money. Tiger parts are used in traditional
Chinese medicine because some people believe that
tiger parts have special powers. Forestry and
wildlife departments are too understaffed and
under budgeted to be effective against the
onslaught of poachers. While the exact number of
tigers being poached is unknown, some sources
have estimated that one tiger a day is being
killed in India.
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Images
Caspian
Siberian
Javan
Bengal
Sumatran
Indochinese
South Chinese
Bali