Big Cats - Siberian Tiger (Panthera tigris)

The tiger is the largest creature in the cat family. It is native to much of eastern and southern Asia and can grow up to 13 feet in length (nose to tail tip) and weighing over 600 pounds. For land-based carnivores, they are second only in size to polar bears.

Because they have evolved and lived in areas of the world densly populated with humans, they have had extensive human contact. That contact has typically been bad for tigers, as now all subspecies are "endangered". Three subspecies of tiger are now extinct: the Balinese, the Javan and the Caspian tigers. All three subspecies were hunted to extinction by humans.

All tigers are easily identified by the coat of black stripes over orangish/reddish fur, with white underbelly. The tiger's fur was highly prized by hunters, but another reason for hunting tigers was simple fear. Because of their proximity and contact with humans, tigers would sometimes become "man-eaters", hunting and eating humans as easy prey. This would nearly always occur as a result of an injury or impairment to the tiger.

For example: "Champawat", a man-eating tigress from the 1930s, killed over 400 people in Nepal and India before finally being hunted down and killed by the famous hunter Jim Corbett in 1937. An examination of the dead tiger's teeth revealed that the upper and lower canine teeth on one side of her mouth were completely broken. This permanent injury prevented her from killing natural prey and led her instead to hunt humans.

Tigers are territorial and solitary. Females may allow their own territories to overlap, but males mark and defend their territories to the exclusion of other males. Usually three or four cubs are born to a mother and father tiger. Males and females tolerate each other's presence within territories, but mother tigers usually raise cubs on their own. Contrary to lions, male lions will allow females and young cubs first feeding after making a kill.

Because of the popularity of tigers in zoos, and the scarcity of tigers in the wild; it is said that the population tigers in USA zoos may rival the entire population of wild tigers, worldwide.