What’s the main cause of the decline in the number of the tigers?
Over the past 30 years, the South China tiger has suffered from continuous and extensive hunting, deforestation of its habitat to supply the timber trade, the reclamation of agricultural land and pollution. Together with the uncontrolled hunting of prey species, this has resulted in the rapid decline of the tiger population and reduced its habitat to the hilly areas of East and South China. The conflict between human and the tiger lies in the nature of subsistence for tigers. Firstly, tigers need a lot of space. One tiger, even under the condition that the preys are abundant, requires at least 15 to 30 sq. km. The rapid increase in the human population divides tiger habitats into islands and small areas, which can not meet its needs. Moreover, isolated individuals could not communicate with each other, nor can they reproduce offspring. In this sense, tigers’ survival is really at stake. The second reason is that most of tigers’ preys are also what we humans need. Due to the uncontrolle
