Most of the time, when someone says the word “tiger,” a very distinctive creature comes to mind. This creature usually has an orange-and-black striped coat, walks on all fours legs, has a long tail, and looks like a much larger version of a domestic housecat. Tigers are beautiful animals to behold and they have a lot of extraordinary qualities that make them skillful hunters and predators. Let’s explore the realm of the terrific tiger, and how we can help them.

Tigers Need Our Help?

Tigers need humans to help them continue to survive as a species. Due to problems throughout the 20th century and into the 21st such as deforestation, poaching, and demand for tiger parts in medicines, tigers are a critically endangered species. Their scant population occupies only 6% of the land it once did and a 2016 estimate of only 3,890 tigers in the wild. While this number actually increased for the first time in a century from 3,200 in 2011, it needs to be much higher before they are no longer considered critically endangered.

Why Tigers Are Important

Tigers are apex predators, meaning that because of their evolution, vast and diverse systems of species depend on them for survival. When a tiger kills a deer for his family’s supper, it is not only the removal of the deer that affects the system. The entire ecosystem around that tiger and that deer are affected, from the other animals that will scavenge and survive off of what the tigers don’t eat from the deer to the bugs that help clean to deer’s bones to the microorganisms in the soil that thrive on those bones and other parts being left behind. The elimination of an apex predator from any ecosystem is always a terribly dangerous act because the work of that predator maintains the sustainability of the system. Without the predator there, the system collapses. And there are very few apex predators in the world.

With only 3,890 tigers left in the world, then, it makes sense that it’s important to protect them and ensure that we are doing everything we can to get their numbers in the wild to flourish. It might seem funny that tigers are having trouble maintaining their territory: after all, they are big cats that once were the top predator for nearly all of Asia’s forests. That top predator has nowhere to go, though, when the forests are being torn down all around them. It’s hard for them to survive if they are running scared all the time because of poachers and other harmful human-borne activity.

The World Conservation Society, one of a few different groups involved in protecting the tigers, has identified six strategies that will be helpful to stop the killing and poaching of tigers. They are:

• Protect tigers and their natural habitat
• Build capacity in range states
• Reduce human-tiger conflict
• Conduct research to help inform conservation strategies
• Promote tiger-friendly policies
• Monitor tiger numbers and population trends, as well as threats to tigers and their habitats.

This may seem like a lot more than any one person can handle, and that’s why there are thousands of people working directly to implement these strategies. But you may be wondering if there is anything you can do to help.

How You Can Help

Just like how tigers, as apex predators, affect the food chain that depends on them, anything and everything that you do in order to promote conservation can be helpful for the whole world, too. Things like:

• Recycling
• Composting
• Supporting environmental initiatives locally and globally
• Talking with others about what they can do to help tigers
• Writing to your Congresspeople
• Calling your Congresspeople
• Supporting climate initiatives
• Reducing your carbon footprint
• Planting a garden
• Planting trees

…and many more actions that promote environmental responsibility and sustainability can be helpful not only for you and your local economy, but for the planet as a whole. You just never know how much of an impact you’re going to make, so it might as well be a helpful impact.

What are your ideas for saving the tigers, and the planet? We’d love to read about them in the comments!