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Tiger Distribution

Today only about 4,000 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.

Strengthening Landscape-level Tiger Conservation

Potential tiger habitat extends over vast areas of Asia and there simply aren't sufficient financial resources to save tigers everywhere. Necessity forces us to identify the best places to invest, where we feel that tigers have the strongest chances for survival. In order to meet these needs and to help other conservation donors come up with a coordinated investment strategy, Save The Tiger Fund commissioned the most comprehensive report on the state of wild tigers ever “Setting Priorities for the Conservation and Recovery of the World's Tigers 2005-2015”. It serves as a roadmap to guide conservation investors, practitioners, development agencies and governments in their efforts to save wild tigers.

Tiger conservation priorities at a glance

Tiger conservation landscapes (TCL) were assessed and prioritized by analyzing three data sets: land cover derived from satellite images; human interference data based on a global human footprint analysis; and tiger distribution records from on-the-ground tiger sightings and signs that were gathered from 160 of the world's leading tiger conservation experts and over 3000 tiger location points.

Bad news

• Tigers occupy only 7% of their historic range.
• Tigers use 40 % less area than was estimated in 1997.

Good news

• Over 1.1 million square km of habitat remains, an area more than twice the size of Texas, and 23% of this is protected.
• Four strongholds could support more than 500 tigers: 1) Russian Far East-Northeast China, 2) Terai Arc Landscape (India/Nepal), 3) Northern Forest Complex-Namdapha-Royal Manas (Myanmar/India), 4) Tenasserims of Thailand/Myanmar.

Going forward

STF explores creative ways to increase conservation investments, improve transboundary conservation, and create human-tiger friendly landscapes that have core protected areas where tigers can raise their young, surrounded by buffer zones and connected by corridors so that humans and tigers can co-exist.

Essential goals for the next 10 years:

• Secure tiger populations in all global-priority tiger landscapes;
• Obtain reserve status for 10 places with unprotected breeding tiger populations;
• Establish at least five tiger habitat corridors between fragmented tiger conservation landscapes.
• Expand the range of breeding tigers in at least five priority tiger conservation landscapes.
• Implement a holistic conservation strategy that engages regional development organizations, government officials, NGO's and businesses to consider tiger conservation needs in national and regional development plans.

STF is committed to implementing this plan, but cannot do so alone. We are coordinating with other funding agencies to ensure that this conservation vision is realized. STF is the premier tiger conservation organization in the world and our conservation investment strategy has input from over 160 tiger conservation experts, which, combined with a decade of experience in grant-making in Asia allows STF and its donor partners to maximize the 'bang for their conservation buck.' As an independent funding agency without any of its own field programs Save The Tiger Fund acts as a neutral convener for governments, businesses, funding agencies and NGO's. It provides both technical assistance and encourages cooperative on-the-ground actions to minimize the duplication of efforts, offering financial resources as incentives to those groups willing to work together.

Download the full conservation priorities report and explore online tiger maps here.