Tigers

  Tigers are one of the many endangered species that inhabit this planet. There are an estimated 5,000 to 7,400 tigers left in the world. Tigers are hunted for their coats and wealthy people kill some for sport. Tigers are threatened with extinction due to loss of habitat. There are 5 surviving subspecies; 3 other subspecies have gone extinct in the last 70 years. This page will tell you more about this amazing species.

What do Tigers look like?

Colour
Tigers come in three main colours.
Siberian, Amur and Bengal Tigers have striped fur usually orange with black stripes and a white underbelly. White Tigers are mutated Bengal Tigers from India, and they have white fur with dark brown or deep maroon stripes. Black Tigers have orange to yellow fur with black stripes. Even rarer, stripe less tigers have been spotted.

Size
Male tigers are larger than female tigers. Siberian tigers are the largest and Sumatran tigers are the smallest. Adult tigers range from 4.5 feet (1.37 m) to 9 feet (2.7 m) long. Tigers' tails are 3-4 feet long.

Teeth and claws
 Tigers have retractable claws. Tigers have the largest canine teeth of any land-based carnivores.

Where do they live?

Tigers live only in Asia. They usually live in forests. They can live in tropical forests to cold mountain forests. Tigers also live in the long grass of Asia.

Breeding

Tigers breed during the winter, and females give birth to 2-4 blind cubs about 103 days later.. One cub frequently dies at birth. The cubs live on mother's milk for 6-8 weeks and then are introduced to meat. Cubs are dependent on the mother for about a year and a half; they can start hunting on their own at this age.  

Behaviour

Tigers are solitary hunters that live alone. They only become social during the mating seasons when the males cross into the female’s territory. When hunting they stalk their prey and attack from ambush. They hunt from ambush.

White TigerWhite tigers are Bengal tigers with a rare gene that prevents the normal pigments from forming. This lack of pigment lends to white fur and blue eyes. Reports of wild white tigers can be traced for hundreds of years through folklore, and in the 1950s, reports of a wild white tiger in India were again widespread. A royal family had the male white tiger cub captured and raised him in their courtyard. In order to breed more white tigers, this male tiger was bred to his orange-colour daughter who carried the gene. All white tigers found in captivity are descendants of this male. Although white tiger cubs offer little value to conservation initiatives (their genes are over-represented), they do serve as successful education ambassadors because of their popularity. Furthermore, other conservation projects can directly benefit from the funds generated by this unique species.

Amur Tigers

The two tigers at Dublin zoo are Amur tigers. Their names are Turlough (male) and Mercedes (female). Amur tigers live in cold mountain forests and that is why they have such thick fur to keep them warm. In the wild they will eat up to 9kg of meat per day. Amur tigers are very rare and there is thought to be from 150-300 left in the wild. However many zoos are now breeding Amur tigers to help protect this species and its captive population is much larger than the amount in the wild.