The last 700 Asiatic lions live clustered in one group in Gujarat, India.

The remaining 20,000 African lions survive mostly within protected areas, absent from 95 percent of their historic range. But In Africa, these cats are in freefall, their numbers declining by 50 percent in 20 years.

Mike McGovern worked on the film The Hidden Tiger unpacking the American tiger crises and has conducted research tiger populations and tiger tourism across Southeast Asia.įew animals embody the raw power of the lion, a regal cat renowned for its strength.

Sharon’s New York Times Sunday Review article identified the buyers in the high-end market for tiger products: Asia’s wealthy, business executives and government officials and a Conservation Science and Practice article quantified illegal tiger imports into the U.S.

Congressional support for legislation regulating private ownership of big cats.

Sharon Guynup and Steve Winter’s investigations into wildlife trafficking of captive tigers helped shut down Thailand’s Tiger Temple and gained U.S.

They coauthored the book Tigers Forever: Saving the World’s Most Endangered Big Cat. Their undercover investigations into captive tiger tourism venues revealed its role in feeding illegal trade that is poaching some of the world’s last wild tigers. Steve Winter and Sharon Guynup have covered tigers for two decades, producing numerous stories for National Geographic, The New York Times and other outlets. With targeted conservation strategies and focused efforts to combat poaching, deforestation, and human-tiger conflict, Indochinese tigers are rebounding in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex and Bengal tigers are thriving in parts of India. An estimated 5,000 wild tigers remain, split among five subspecies. They’ve disappeared from 93 percent of their historic range, hanging on in 10 countries. A century ago, more than 100,000 roamed 30 Asian nations.

Tigers are also the most endangered big cat. For millennia they’ve stood as an iconic symbol of power and courage, woven into culture, religion, folklore and ritual.

Panthera tigris, the largest of the world’s cats, is the heart and soul of Asia’s jungles – and the dominant predator in every ecosystem it inhabits.

Cougar by Alan Rabinowitz