Tigers are victims of poaching, habitat loss and population fragmentation. It's illegal to kill a Sumatran tiger, but poachers still risk arrest because of the booming black-market trade in tiger bones, whiskers and body parts for Chinese folk medicines. As forests are cut down for farming and development, tigers cannot find the enough food. Another problem is population fragmentation, which occurs when groups of tigers become separated by farms and villages. This has led to inbreeding, which weakens an already faltering species.
Poachers shoot hundreds of tigers each year, burying the skins and taking the bones.
Because tiger bones are difficult to identify, poachers can transport them easily across borders by claiming they're the bones of animals that are legal to hunt. Some tiger parts are believed to increase sexual potency, which is ironic since usually tigers don't mate for longer than seven seconds.