Name: Panthera tigris tigris (also known as the Bengal tiger or Royal Bengal tiger)

Description: Male Bengal tigers average 2.9 meters (9 1/2 feet) from head to tail and weigh about 220 kilograms (480 pounds). Females are smaller, measuring about 2.5 meters (8 feet) in length and weighing approximately 140 kilograms (300 pounds). All white tigers are a variation in color of the Bengal tiger, some tigers have been reported that are white with or without black stripes, as well as tigers that are black with white or tawny stripes.

Distribution: The Bengal tiger lives in a wide range of habitats, including the high-altitude, cold, coniferous Himalayan forests, the steaming mangroves of the Sunderbans, the swampy reedlands, the scorched hills of the Indian peninsula, the lush wet forests of Northern India, and the arid forests of Rajasthan. Save The Tiger Fund has identified several key landscapes that are home to significant groups of Bengal tiger populations that have been identified in the recent Tiger Conservation Landscapes document. They are 1) Terai Arc Landscape at the foothills of the Himalayas in India and Nepal, 2) the Eastern Himalayan forests and tall-grasslands anchored by Bhutan, 3) Myanmar’s Hukuwang Valley, 4) the Sundarbans mangrove forest in India and Bangladesh, 4) the Tropical dry and moist forests in the Central Indian Highlands, and 5) the Western Ghats of India.

Biology: Bengal tigers prey on wild deer, wild cattle, wild pig, gaur and wild buffalo. Their range size is estimated at 10-39 km2 (3.9–15 mile2) for females and 30-105 km2 (11.7–40.5 mile2) for males. Bengal tiger density and range size has been closely tied to prey availability and areas with high prey abundance support larger numbers of tigers with small territory sizes. Kaziranga, Nagrahole, Bandipur and Khana national parks in India are home to some of the highest densities of tigers in the world because of their abundant prey base.

Status in the wild : In 1998 Peter Jackson of the CAT Specialist group consulted many tiger experts came up with the following estimates:

* Bangladesh 362
* Bhutan 67-81 (adults)
* China 30-35
* India 2500-3750
* Western Myanmar 124-231
* Nepal 93-97 (adults)

However, the actual number of tigers in India is a source of much contention. For several decades, the status of wild tigers in India has been estimated from the individual identification of pug marks (or footprints), a methodology that has been challenged on grounds of human error and manipulation. The first all-India census in 1971 produced a baseline figure of 1,800 tigers. Project Tiger and Wildlife Institute of India officials reported in subsequent censuses that tiger numbers increased to 4,334 in 1989. These estimates were disputed by Indian biologists, who suggested that the number is about half of what officials estimate.

In response to this criticism, India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Project Tiger Directorate launched a three year $1.1 million initiative to survey tiger and prey populations using the latest technology known as the Framework for Monitoring Tiger Population Trends in India. This uses remote sensing and GIS to generate ecologically audited maps for all tiger areas in India. This effort is ongoing.

Bengal tigers are threatened by habitat fragmentation, poaching of tigers and their prey and retaliation killings resulting from human-tiger conflict.

Captive breeding: Indian zoos have bred tigers since 1880, the first time being at the Alipore Zoo in Calcutta. In the last two decades they have bred so successfully that there are now too many. Unfortunately other subspecies of tigers brought by dealers from outside India over the years have been mixed with Indian tigers, so that many zoo tigers are of questionable lineage and therefore not appropriate for conservation purposes. The 1997 International Tiger Studbook lists the current global captive population of Bengal tigers at 210 tigers. All of the studbook-registered captive population is maintained in Indian zoos, except for one female Bengal tiger in North America. Completion of the Indian Bengal Tiger Studbook is a necessary prerequisite to establishing a captive management program for tigers in India.