Photo Credit: Unsplash
Global Tiger Day is celebrated every year on July 29 to raise awareness for tiger conservation.
According to National Geographic, the Tiger is the largest wild cat in the world. The combination of grace, strength, agility and enormous power has earned the tiger its pride of place as the national animal of India. Here are some facts about the animal.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
India is home to more than 70% of the world’s wild tiger population. The minimum population estimate is 3,167 individuals, according to a government report released in April 2023.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
2. According to World Wide Fund for Nature, Tigers were around about 2 million years ago.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Tigers primarily hunt deer, but as opportunistic predators, they can also eat wild boars, birds, fish, rodents, amphibians, reptiles, and even insects. A large deer can provide a tiger with one week's food, but only one out of every ten hunts is successful, as per WWF.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
As per a Discovery report, Tigers in the wild live for between ten and fifteen years and very rarely will reach eighteen or even twenty.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Today, there are five subspecies of tiger, according to Nat Geo. These subspecies are the Bengal tiger, South China tiger, Indochinese tiger, Sumatran tiger and Amur tiger. Three subspecies of tiger have become extinct – the Caspian, Bali and Javan.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
6. Tigers are mostly solitary, apart from associations between mother and offspring. Individual tigers have a large territory, and the size is determined mostly by the availability of prey.
Photo Credit: Pexels
7. Tiger stripes are individually as unique as human fingerprints.
Photo Credit: Pexels