Tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are renowned for their power and strength.

The Royal Bengal Tigers, one of the world's largest big cat populations, could disappear by the end of this century as rising sea levels caused by climate change destroy their habitat along the Sundarbans coast, according to a new WWF-led study published in the journal Climatic Change.

Tigers are among the world's most threatened species, with only an estimated 3,200 remaining in the world, including over 400 in Bangladesh and India, said officials of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

They said the threats facing the Royal Bengal Tigers and other iconic species around the world highlight the need for urgent international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"It's disheartening to imagine that the Sundarbans - which means 'beautiful forest' in Bengali - could be gone this century, along with its tigers," said Colby Loucks, WWF-US deputy director of conservation science and the lead author of the study 'Sea Level Rise and Tigers: Predicted Impacts to Bangladesh's Sundarbans Mangroves'.

"If we don't take steps to address the impacts of climate change on the Sundarbans, the only way its tigers will survive this century is with scuba gear," he added.

The projected sea level rise in the Sundarbans is likely to outpace the tiger's ability to adapt, says the WWF, a UK-based wildlife conservation agency.

The Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared by India and Bangladesh at the mouth of the Ganges River, is the world's largest single block of mangrove forest.

Providing the habitat for between 250 and 400 tigers, the Sundarbans is also home to more than 50 reptile species, 120 commercial fish species, 300 bird species and 45 mammal species.

While their exact numbers are unclear, the tigers living in the Sundarbans of India and Bangladesh may represent as many as 10 percent of all the remaining wild tigers worldwide.

Using the rates of sea level rise projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Fourth Assessment Report (2007), the study's authors wrote that a 28 cm sea level rise may be realised around 2070, at which point tigers will be unlikely to survive in the Sundarbans.

However, recent research suggests that the seas may rise even more swiftly than what was predicted in the 2007 IPCC assessment.

In addition to climate change, the Sundarbans tigers, like other tiger populations around the world already face tremendous threats from poaching and habitat loss. Tiger ranges have decreased by 40 percent over the past decade, and tigers today occupy less than seven percent of their original range.

Scientists fear that accelerating deforestation and rampant poaching could push some tiger populations to the same fate as their now-extinct Javan and Balinese relatives in other parts of Asia.

Tigers are poached for their highly prized skins and body parts, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The 2010 Year of the Tiger will mark an important year for conservation efforts to save wild tigers, with WWF continuing to play a vital role in implementing bold new strategies to save this magnificent Asian big cat.

The study also recommended that the government and natural resource managers should take immediate steps to conserve and expand mangroves while preventing poaching and retaliatory killing of tigers.