According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, The tiger is currently critically endangered.  The tiger is the largest species of Felidae (Mazak, 1981).  They have a reddish orange to reddish ochre coloration, with dark stripes that are generally vertical.  Underparts are white, with a large skull (Mazak).  Tigers are muscular, with powerful forequarters.  The adult length ranges from 2200 to 3000mm, with females being somewhat smaller.  Hairs are short  around 7 to 20mm on the back and 15 to 35mm on the belly (Mazak).  In zoos, tigers have lived for 20 to 26 years, which also seems to be their longevity in the wild.  Currently, the Bali tiger, Caspian tiger, and Javan tiger are the only species of tigers that have gone extinct.  The South China tiger is the most endangered of the remaining subspecies.

Tigers were found throughout Asia, but during the 20^th century, they have become restricted to isolated pockets.  Habitat loss and intense poaching of tigers and their prey, coupled with inadequate government efforts to maintain tiger populations have resulted in a dramatic range contraction in tiger populations (Dinerstein et al., 2007).  Tigers now occupy 7% of their historical range, and in the past decade, the area occupied by tigers has decreased by as much as 41 percent.  While the tiger as a wild species will most likely not go extinct within the next half-century, its current trajectory is catastrophic.  If this trend continues, the current range will shrink even further, and wild populations will disappear from many more places (Dinerstein et al.).