Digital Illustration by Daniel Kingston

Tigers are a royal species among all the Asian big cats, covered by a flame colored complexion with coal black stripes. They have smouldering, amber eyes and reddish orange fur as camouflage when they move from tree to tree. They are also the largest cat species with incredible strength, instant high speed, and flawless hunting skills. These features are both admired and feared by humans. But despite being fearless animals, they are still threatened.

Tigers have an average lifespan of 20 years in the wild. Male tigers may weigh up to 660 pounds. They are mostly found in India, Myanmar, Thailand, and Southeastern China. However, tigers face pressure from poaching, frequent killings and habitat loss.

Tigers have been included on the endangered animals list because their current population is only around 3,890 on Earth. People have been alerted by the fact that tigers are trapped by hunters, stripped of their skin and fur, and sold for high prices all over the world.

Those left in the wild struggle to survive in a few patches of forest scattered across Asia. Tigers have lost most of their territorial range such as in tropical rain forests, temperate forests, and mangrove forests. Sundarbans, where the mangrove forest was known to be one of the largest forests that contained most of the tiger population in the world are now at risk due to environmental changes. Rising sea levels caused by those changes threaten the tigers’ habitats and destroy most of their territories.

Human beings are also trying to prevent the decreasing of the tiger population and the loss of their habitats. Tigers need landscapes to survive.  We can protect and connect their habitat by improving the environment and their territorial range. Because tigers are an endangered species, we should propose laws that help the conservation of tigers and their habitats.

The illegal poachers have killed a large number of tigers across Asia and there are still lots of threats that force tigers to leave their habitat. But humans have been trying to reverse this trend when they realized tigers are not far away from extinction. We can save this royal species by building strategies to help grow the tiger population.