The Vanishing Tiger Wild Tigers, Co-Predators & Prey Species

From Time Immemorial, the tiger has been an object of great awe, reverence and superstition. It has an overpowering presence and its strength and ferocity are proverbial. Today its survival is in great jeopardy. In the last 100 years or so, from a population of about 100,000, barely 6,000 tigers remain in the world. Out of its eight subspecies, three have become extinct in the last 60 years. In India, where 60% of the total tiger population lives, its numbers have declined by over 90% within the last century. Once hunted in the name of sport, the tiger is now hunted illegally for profit and for traditional medicines. Human encroachment -- for farming, human resettlement, mining, industrialisation and logging, and land lost by dams for irrigation and electricity -- is pushing this amazing creature to the edge of extinction.

Vivek Sinha, an internationally acknowledged wildlife photographer, lives in India and has dedicated the last two decades of his life to photographing the tiger in the wild