Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris)
The beautiful19-year-old female Bengal Tiger named Roshe died in April 2012. She was born in captivity on November 1, 1992, and came to Zoo Miami (previously known as Miami MetroZoo) on February 18, 1994.
The tiger once ranged widely across Asia, from Turkey in the west to the eastern coast of Russia (Nowell and Jackson, 1996). Over the past 100 years tigers have disappeared from southwest and central Asia, from two Indonesian islands (Java and Bali) and from large areas of Southeast and Eastern Asia. Tigers have lost 93% of their historic range (Sanderson et al., 2006).
Tigers are currently found in twelve Asian range states: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Viet Nam. They may still persist in North Korea, although there has been no recent confirmed evidence.
It is the largest living member of the cat family and no two animals are the same; each Bengal Tiger has its own pattern of stripes. Around the year 1900, there were as many as 50,000 Bengal Tigers in India. But by the year 1972, there were only about 1,800 Bengal tigers left. Through an attempt to conserve the existence of the tiger, there are currently about 4,000 tigers remaining.
Status: Endangered --> Status information found at The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species