India's Bengal tiger population fell some 95 percent between 1930, when the nation may have been home to 40,000 tigers, and 1972, when there were fewer than 2,000. Thanks to protection measures and tiger reserves, India's tiger population has approximately doubled since the 1970s. Still the tiger's chances for survival in the wild are precarious. Without effective long-term protection tigers could disappear from their natural habitat in the next decade. Tigers generally prefer large, wild prey.
Some tigers even attack elephants.
Patiently, without a sound, the tiger watches, stalks, and attacks. Guarding, feasting, napping, the tiger stays for days, leaving nothing but the animal's bones and stomach. Despite the tiger's speed and strength, it only succeeds in killing perhaps one in 20 of its intended victims. With the human population expanding into tiger territory, livestock sometimes becomes a tiger meal, to the annoyance of impoverished farmers. Though most tigers avoid people, ill or injured tigers, no longer able to make bigger kills, have attacked humans.