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Wild tigers, the most beautiful and majestic creatures are on a path toward extinction. Once found in almost the entire world, their population has reduced to just about three thousand and five hundred in the wild and most clustered in fragmented areas making up less than 7 percent of their former range in Asia. Their numbers have declined in the wild from perhaps 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, to more than 10,000 in the 1980s to less than 3,500 today, a study says.

The new study — to which researchers from the conservationist group Panthera, the World Bank, the University of Cambridge and others also contributed — identifies 42 key areas that have concentrations of tigers with the potential to grow and populate larger landscapes. Eighteen are in India — the country with the most tigers — eight in Indonesia, six in Russia's Far East and the others scattered elsewhere in Asia.

The study was issued ahead of a major U.N. conference in Japan next month at which nations are expected to agree on new targets to try to halt the decline in the loss of plant and animal species.

Tiger's habitat in India, Russia, China and Southeast Asia has been carved up, their prey has
been taken away from them and tigers are killed, their parts used in traditional medicine. Despite the millions of dollars that have been spent to save one of the most charismatic and iconic species on the planet, if current trends continue—and there's little reason to expect they won't—tigers will be all but extinct in the wild some day soon.

"Wild tigers are right on the brink," says John Robinson, executive vice president for conservation and science at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

In practicality, there exist just forty two sites in Asia that have any tigers living. It therefore
becomes imperative upon the governments, within whose control the areas lie, to conserve and
protect the grand tigers.

Tigers Are in Peril