The 6 tiger sub-species still alive today

Amur tiger

A typical male Amur tiger, the largest of the tiger subspecies, may weigh more than 250kg and measure nearly 3m from nose to tip of tail. Once found in the taiga and boreal forests of the Russian Far East, China and the Koreas, the Amur tiger -- also known as the Siberian tiger -- is now restricted to the Sikhote-Alin range in Russia's Primorski and Khabarovski provinces, and possibly to small pockets in the border areas of China and North Korea.

Amur tiger populations have been severely reduced by poaching, poaching of prey and habitat destruction. The 2005 Amur tiger survey revealed less than 420 of this sub-species remain in the wild.

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Bengal tiger

The Bengal tiger is the most numerous of tigers in the wild today. It lives in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar (Burma) and Nepal, with India home to the biggest population. It mostly inhabits the deciduous forests of central and south India, the Terai-Duar grassland and sal forests of the Himalayan foothills, and the temperate forests of Bhutan.

The Sunderban, which straddles Bangladesh and India, hosts the only mangrove forests where tigers are found. A burgeoning human population is reducing the space available to the tiger, resulting in increasing conflicts with humans that often lead to retributive killings.

The tiger also faces a serious threat from poachers. Although precise figures are not available throughout its range, current estimates show there are about 2,000 Indian tigers surviving in the wild.

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Indochinese tiger

Dispersed widely throughout seven countries (Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), the Indochinese tiger probably numbers fewer than 1,500. The key menace is poaching of both tiger and prey.

In some landscapes, good habitat is extensive, although fragmentation driven by rapid development, especially of road networks, is forcing tigers into small and scattered refuges that isolate the populations. Unfortunately, this provides better access for poachers.

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Sumatran tiger

The smallest of the tigers, the Sumatran, is critically endangered. Found only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, it is fighting for survival against poaching and large-scale habitat conversion. A TRAFFIC (the joint wildlife trade programme of WWF and IUCN, the World Conservation Union) report on Sumatran tigers revealed that at least 50 were poached every year between 1998 and 2002.

Now, the last 400 or so are confined mostly to protected areas in montane forests, peat swamps and remaining blocks of lowland rainforests, which are threatened by conversion to agriculture and commercial plantations, as well as encroachment by logging and road construction.

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South China tiger

Thought to be the ancestor of all tigers, the South China sub-species has not been sighted in the wild for more than 25 years. If a wild population does remain, it may not be viable. Its survival would depend on adequate habitat and prey species, both of which are scarce or heavily fragmented.

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Malayan tiger

The Malayan tiger was only identified as being a separate subspecies from the Indochinese tiger in 2004. It is found only in the southern part of the Malay Peninsula. While similar to the Indochinese tiger, the Malayan tiger is smaller, being closer in size to the Sumatran tiger. The average weight for adult males is 120kg and females is 100kg.

Malayan tigers are sparsely distributed in isolated small forests, secondary vegetation, and abandoned agricultural land in areas of low human and road density. Their low density is due to low prey numbers. The population is unknown, but has been estimated as at least 500 individuals.

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