The tiger is simultaneously one of the most iconic, beloved and promoted but also one of the most threatened species in the world. It used to be spread out all over the biggest continent on this planet, Asia.
At the start of the last century, there were probably over 100 000 tigers in South-East Asia, Northern and Central Asia, India, China and even in the Caucasus. But the fate of many large carnivores hit the tiger especially hard.
Humans hunted them for reputation, fun, traditional medicine and because of fear across its distribution.
By the 1970s, the population had dropped by over 95% to around 4000 animals. Several subspecies or populations went completely extinct. The northernmost subspecies (or population), the Siberian or Amur tiger closely escaped this faith with only a few hundred individuals left in the wild.
The population between Caucasus, Altai and Himalaya, sometimes called the Caspian tiger, was extinguished. So today, we can only find the Siberian tiger in the far east of Russia plus a few individuals in China and possibly North Korea.
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