International Tiger Day, also known as Global Tiger Day, is an annual celebration to raise awareness for tiger conservation, held annually on 29 July. It was created in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit. The goal of the day is to promote a global system for protecting the natural habitats of tigers and to raise public awareness and support for tiger conservation issues.

1913:There were 100,000 tigers

2013: now 3,274 tigers

We have lost 97% of all wild tigers in a bit over 100 years. Instead of 100,000, as few as 3,200 live in the wild today. A number of Tiger species have already been extinct.
Tigers may be one of the most admired animals, but they are also vulnerable to extinction.

At this rate, all tigers living in the wild could be extinct in 5 years!

International Tiger Day is held annually on July 29 to give worldwide attention to the reservation of tigers.  It was founded at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit in 2010. This was done because at that moment wild tigers were too close to extinction. 

So on this International Tiger Day , lets share few interesting facts about Tiger :

Tiger Subspecies

The tiger has traditionally been classified into nine subspecies, of which three are recently extinct and one likely so. Bengal, Amur, Sumatran, Indochinese, and the recently described Malayan tiger, are the surviving subspecies, while the Bali, Javan, Caspian, and, perhaps South China subspecies are extinct.

Tiger count countrywise

Tigers are found maximum in india –around 1400 tigers. Then Is Malaysia-around 500 ,Bangladesh -400, Russia-350 , Indonesia -300, Thailand -200 , Nepal-125 and so on.

How did tigers extinct ?

Habitat loss
Tigers lost 93% of their natural habitat due to the expansion of cities and agriculture by humans.
Fewer tigers can survive in small, scattered islands of habitat, which lead to a higher risk of inbreeding. These small islands of habitat also make tigers more vulnerable to poaching

Human wildlife conflict
People and tigers are competing for space. The conflict threatens the world?s remaining wild tigers and poses a major problem for communities living in or near tiger forests. As forests shrink and prey gets scarce, tigers are forced to hunt domestic livestock, which many local communities depend on for their livelihood. In retaliation, tigers are killed or captured. ?Conflict? tigers are known to end up for sale in black markets. Local community dependence on forests for fuelwood, food and timber also heightens the risk of tiger attacks.

Climate change
One of the world?s largest tiger populations is found in the Sundarbans—a large mangrove forest area shared by India and Bangladesh on the northern coast of the Indian Ocean. This area harbors Bengal tigers and protects coastal regions from storm surges and wind damage. However, rising sea levels that were caused by climate change threaten to wipe out these forests and the last remaining habitat of this tiger population. According to a WWF study, without mitigation efforts, projected sea level rise—nearly a foot by 2070—could destroy nearly the entire Sundarbans tiger habitat.

The task of saving tigers and their natural habitats is a challenging one. Poaching of tigers continues unabated due to the weak institutional capacity for wildlife-law enforcement in most tiger range countries and the burgeoning global demand for tiger parts. Lack of scientific capacity for wildlife monitoring and management leads to further habitat deterioration in the face of changing and varied threats. Tiger landscapes continue to be fragmented and reduced by the day due to rapid infrastructural and industrial expansion and land-use change from forests to plantations and other human activities. In many cases, such habitat loss takes place far away from the public eye due to poor information flows and lack of communication. Over-exploitation of forest resources by dependent communities, who live well below the poverty line, contributes to the degradation of tiger habitat. Above all, policy makers generally remain unaware of the immense economic value of living tigers and their natural habitats (both realized and potential) leading to low prioritization of conservation !==!--object--==ives in national planning.

Why save Tiger ?

Tigers are a symbol of all that is splendid, mystical and powerful about nature. The loss of tigers would inevitably mean the loss of cultural and spiritual values that connect humans to the wild world.:

Ecologically speaking, loss of large cats such as tigers from their natural habitat has been seen to result in irreversible changes in natural ecosystems. Being at the top of the food web, the decline of large predators may lead to over-abundance of herbivores such as deer, which in turn has repercussions on tree regeneration and seed dispersal. Such effects reverberate through the food-web, causing long-term changes in natural flora and fauna, eventually leading to species losses. For instance, the absence of carnivores has led to over-population of white-tailed deer in Eastern United States, of blue bull in the Gangetic plains of northern India and agoutis in Barro Colorado Island, Panama.

Habitats where wild tigers live are high-value ecosystems that provide vital services to humans, such as carbon sequestration, hydrological balance, pollination services, protection from natural disasters and soil erosion, medicinal plant genetic diversity, and bio-prospecting. For instance, tourism values from tiger habitats run into billions of dollars today and contribute to the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Further, wildlife tourism is still highly under-valued–people are willing to pay many times more than they currently are, exhibiting the revenue-generating potential of natural habitats. It has also been demonstrated that lasting benefits from nature depend upon the maintenance of essential ecological processes and upon the diversity of life forms. By allowing tigers to go extinct, therefore, we would be depriving future generations of the benefits from natural diversity that have been the bedrock of human progress.

Many of the tiger landscapes exist in regions of high biodiversity. Thus actions to protect tigers in their natural habitats will automatically lead to global benefits for biological diversity. About 71% of the tiger landscapes lie in one of the designated 25 biodiversity hotspots of the world.

Source : http://globaltigerinitiative.org , wikipedia

 Time is short. Right now, the number of wild tiger is at its lowest ever!