THE PLIGHT OF TIGERS IN CRISIS

Since 1900, the endangered tiger's habitat and numbers have been reduced by up to 95 per cent. Poachers continue to poison waterholes or set steel wire snares to kill tigers and tiger prey, selling their skins and body parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine.

Despite 20 years of international conservation efforts, we are losing ground to save the tiger as, on the list, all sub-species of tigers are considered critically.

Of the eight original subspecies of tigers, three have become extinct in the last 60 years, an average of one every 20 years.The Bali tiger became extinct in the 1930's. The Caspian tiger was forced into extinction in the 1970's. And the Javan tiger followed in the 1980's.

The number of tigers in the 1900's --over 100,000 -- dropped to 4,000 in the 1970's. Today, they are a critically endangered species with the total of all the wild populations of the five remaining subspecies (Bengal tigers, IndoChinese tigers, Siberian tigers, South China tigers, and Sumatran tigers) is an estimated 4,600 and 7,700 tigers.

It is known that all remaining tigers live in small, isolated populations in widely scattered reserves.