Hunting, poaching and illegal trade

For over thousand years, tigers have been hunted as status symbol, decorative item such as wall and floor covering, as souvenirs and curios, and for use in traditional Asian medicines. Hunting for sport probably caused the greatest decline in tiger populations until the 1930s.

In the early 1990s, trade in tiger bone for traditional Chinese medicines threatened to drive tigers to extinction in the wild. Poaching is the largest immediate threat to the remaining tiger population.