Tigers feature in Buddhist culture in China, Korea and Japan. And in the forests, tribal people still tend simple shrines to the tiger. For many Asians, the power of the tiger is sought in its bones to cure disease. In the western world, the tiger has inspired art and poetry, and has been adopted as the advertising symbol of leading businesses. Yet we humans are near the verge of wiping out this majestic animal.
Nobody really knows how many wild tigers there are.
Counting such a secretive animal is immensely difficult, and most estimates are little more than guesses. However, there may be between 5,000 and 7,500 - a small fraction of the 100,000 which may have roamed the forests a century ago. An exploding human population, conversion of wild lands for settlement and agriculture, and ruthless hunting of its prey, and of the tiger itself as a trophy and a pest, have brought the tiger to its present plight. Bali, Javan and Caspian - are already extinct, and the South China tiger is on the brink. Although there had been concern about the tiger's decline, it was only in 1972 that serious conservation efforts began.