Today only about 5,000 wild tigers
live in Asia. They live in a wide range of different habitat types and
climates extending from the steamy lowland forests of Sumatra to the
tall grassy jungles blanketing the foothills of the Himalayas and
coniferous scrub-oak and birch woodlands of the Russian Far East where
temperatures can fall to minus 30 degrees Celcuis.
The highest densities of tigers in the world occur wherever there are
high ungulate prey densities. Various parks areas in India and Nepal
have a good mixture of grassland and woodland that supports so many deer
that tigers simply don’t need to go very far in search of a meal
and in some parks, tiger densities may reach 16 individuals per 100km2.
In places that don’t have big grassy patches like the Russian Far
East temperate forests and the rainforest of Malaysia, prey densities
are very low and tigers must cover huge areas in search of enough prey
to feed themselves. These areas can only support around 1-3 tigers per
100km2.
The tiger's range has contracted severely over the course of the
last century as humans have hunted them and destroyed their habitats and
they now only survive in a few isolated pockets of their former
range.
Today only about 5,000 wild tigers
live in Asia. They live in a wide range of different habitat types and
climates extending from the steamy lowland forests of Sumatra to the
tall grassy jungles blanketing the foothills of the Himalayas and
coniferous scrub-oak and birch woodlands of the Russian Far East where
temperatures can fall to minus 30 degrees Celcuis.
