In 1995 alone, an estimated 73 tigers from across India were butchered, their parts or carcasses shipped into China. The bones are thought by many Asians to cure ulcers, rheumatism, fever and burns. The blood is believed to build the constitution and strengthen willpower. Assaults like these would have wiped out many other species, but as I have observed so often in my studies, the tiger by its very nature has an uncanny ability to bounce back. One reason for the tiger's staying power is its flexibility.
Tigers are tolerant of an unbelievably wide range of habitat conditions, for instance.
They are at home in the hot, dry thorn forests of Rajasthan and the steamy tidal mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans. T hey are also particularly adaptable in their choice of prey, able to kill animals vastly different in size. But in Nagarahole National Park in southern India, tigers selectively hunt gaur, the largest hoofed animal in Asia. Walking up to a gaur that has been recently killed by a tiger is an extraordinary experience. Dead, it becomes a mountain of meat the size of a Volkswagen.