Extinct Tiger Species: Part 1

In the following series, i will be discussing about the 3 tiger species that have gone extinct. And by the way,when a species goes extinct,it means that the last individual of this species has died and any efforts to recover this species has been lost by this point. Ouch, right? And just so you know, of the 44,838 species in the world now, an estimated 905 species have gone extinct and 16,928 are currently endangered. Shocking, right?

Recovered yet?

You never really do...So, here's the story of one of these 'fallen' creatures.

The Javan Tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica)
The Javan Tiger is the most recent subspecies of the tiger to become extinct. And by recent, i mean by the 80s this creature was no more...Unbelievable, right? This tiger was eradicated from the Island of Java by the 1940s and was last reported to have been spotted in the Meru Betiri National Park in Indonesia in 1976. Their extinction has been attributed to direct hunting, habitat loss and depletion of prey.It is thus listed by the IUCN Red List as Extinct.

These tigers had long and narrow stripes with an equally long and narrow nose; they were similar to the Sumatran tiger in appearance. The male species weighed between 100-140 kgs and females weighed between 75-115 kgs.

These species were only found in the island of Java. FYI, this island is the most populous in the world with a population of 141 million as of 2012. No wonder they did not stand a chance! These species were so common in this area that they were considered as 'pests' and thus hunted mercilessly and even poisoned. Talk about rubbing off badly...

In  the 40s, efforts to preserve these species were futile as the small reserves that were set up were not large enough and prey species too few. Since their extinction, some people have made sightings of this tiger...wouldn't it be awesome though if we could find even one! However, no direct proof shows that this species exists at all and in 2003, it was officially announced by IUCN that they were undoubtedly extinct!

So, since humanity watched as this species was totally wiped out, the remaining 6 species are all in jeopardy to suffer the same fate. Considering all the 6 species are endangered, this may not be too far from reality unless we do something! Anyone feel me?