Asia's disappearing tigers
A century ago, 100,000 tigers proudly stalked the jungles of Asia. Today, a ragged remnant of 3,200 survives, including about 1,000 breeding females.
Koshka, a 3-year-old female Siberian tiger, rests in her enclosure at the Denver Zoo in Denver, Colorado June 12, 2009. Koshka was brought to Denver in hopes she would mate with a tiger already at the zoo. Siberian tigers are classified as critically endangered, with an estimated population of less than 400 individuals remaining in the wild.RICK WILKING
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, assisted by Russian scientist scientist Vyacheslav Razhanov, fixes a GPS-Argos satellite transmitter onto a tiger during his visit to the Ussuriysky forest reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Far East on August 31, 2008.AFP
A building and trees are reflected in the glass wall as a white tiger walks in his enclosure at the Moscow Zoo, on November 18, 2010.NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA
Siberian tiger plays with a ball at the zoo in Leipzig, eastern Germany, on August 3, 2010. In the wild, Siberian tigers live in Western and Central Asia and Eastern Russia.JAN WOITAS
Endangered Siberian tigers fight for a wild bird at the Harbin Tiger Park in Harbin in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, Friday, Jan. 8, 2010.Ng Han Guan
Captive siberian tiger carrying a young cub.Edwin Giesbers
In this photo taken on May 7, 2009, Siberian tigers jump for a chicken tossed by a feeder at a branch of Harbin Siberian Tigers Breeding Center in Shenyang in northeast China's Liaoning province. Eleven rare Siberian tigers kept in small cages and fed only chicken bones have died of malnutrition at the nearby Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo, state media said Friday, March 12, 2010.The Associated Press
Anti poaching staff display a tiger skin - one of the poached items on display at the Tikauli Museum, Nepal. WWF funds a new building for the museum that will help educate visitors and local people about the effects of poaching on Nepal's wildlife. Despite the best efforts of conservation groups and governments, tigers still struggle to survive.
A tiger, seen wearing a collar, is spotted during a jungle-safari at the Ranthambore National Park, around 200kms from Jaipur, on October 22, 2010. Efforts to save the tiger, set to be addressed at a conference in Russia November 2010, will depend for a large part on the success of the shield India has attempted to throw around the animal. The country is home to more than half of the world's rapidly dwindling wild tigers, but even its conservation programme, said by the government to be the world's most comprehensive, has failed to halt the creature's demise.MANAN VATSYAYANA
This photo taken on November 10, 2010 shows a white Manchurian tiger resting in an enclosure at the zoo in Beijing. A Global Tiger Summit scheduled in St Petersburg from November 21 will bring leaders of the few remaining countries where tigers are still found in the wild for a make-or-break summit to save the critically endangered animal.GOU YIGE