Tiger Distribution

 Today only about 5,000 wild tigers live in Asia. They live in a wide range of different habitat types and climates extending from the steamy lowland forests of Sumatra to the tall grassy jungles blanketing the foothills of the Himalayas and coniferous scrub-oak and birch woodlands of the Russian Far East where temperatures can fall to minus 30 degrees Celcuis.

The highest densities of tigers in the world occur wherever there are high ungulate prey densities. Various parks areas in India and Nepal have a good mixture of grassland and woodland that supports so many deer that tigers simply don’t need to go very far in search of a meal and in some parks, tiger densities may reach 16 individuals per 100km2. In places that don’t have big grassy patches like the Russian Far East temperate forests and the rainforest of Malaysia, prey densities are very low and tigers must cover huge areas in search of enough prey to feed themselves.
These areas can only support around 1-3 tigers per 100km2.

The tiger's range has contracted severely over the course of the last century as humans have hunted them and destroyed their habitats and they now only survive in a few isolated pockets of their former range.