At the fringes of their territory, they were more easily hunted by the Balinese and Europeans for livestock protection, sport, and museum collections.

Its primary food sources were wild boar, deer, monkeys, fowl, and monitor lizards, but deforestation and increasing agricultural operations began pushing tigers to the mountainous northwestern areas of the island around the turn of the 20th century. The tiger was Bali's top wild predator, thus played a key role in maintaining the balance of other species on the island. It was the smallest of the tiger subspecies, ranging in weight from 140 to 220 pounds, and is said to have been a darker orange color than its mainland relatives with fewer stripes that were occasionally interspersed with small black spots. The Balinese tiger ( Panthera balica) inhabited the tiny Indonesian island of Bali. Historic photo courtesy of Peter Maas / The Sixth Extinction The following photographic timeline chronicles the tiger extinctions that have occurred in recent history.Īn old male Balinese tiger killed in the early 1900s. As of 2017, all six (Amur, Indian/Bengal, South China, Malayan, Indo-Chinese, and the Sumatran) subspecies have been classified as endangered by the IUCN. Sadly, the survival of the six tiger subspecies still remaining in the wild is precarious at best. With fewer places to live, hunt and raise their young, tigers have also become more vulnerable to poachers seeking hides and other body parts that continue to fetch high prices on the black market. The extinction of the Balinese, Caspian, and Javan subspecies have coincided with the drastic alteration of more than 90 percent of tigers' habitat range by logging, agriculture, and commercial development. Now, there are six.ĭespite its iconic stature as one of the most recognizable and revered creatures on Earth, the mighty tiger has proven vulnerable to the actions of humankind. In the early 1900s, nine subspecies of tigers roamed the forests and grasslands of Asia, from Turkey to the eastern coast of Russia.

The tiger hunter rating