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Tx2: Double or nothing

WWF's Tx2 campaign aims to double the wild tiger population by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

We are working to secure unprecedented funding, political commitment, and public support to save the tiger – and so much more.

Find out more!

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Tiger facts & future

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There are as few as 3,200 tigers surviving in the world's forests in this, the Chinese Year of the Tiger.

The scientists say the situation is so bad, that the tiger faces extinction in the wild by the time of the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

WWF will not let this happen. Instead, we want to double the number of tigers by 2022...
Tx2 - we want to double the number of tigers in the wild
Get the latest from the Global Tiger Team blog...

  • Common Name

    Tiger; Tigre (Fr); Tigre (Sp)

  • Scientific Name

    Panthera tigris spp.

    More tiger facts...

  • Status

    IUCN: Endangered A2bcd+4bcd; C1+2a(i) CITES: Appendix I

    More...

  • Population

    Possibly as few as 3,200 individuals

    More...

  • Habitat

    Indo-Malayan, Palearctic

    More...

  • Length

    140-300 cm

    More...

  • Horizontal Leap

    up to 10 meters

  • Biggest cat

    The Siberian tiger is the biggest of all cats found in the wild

    More...

  • Can they be saved?

    Yes! Tigers are cats, and cats if given space and food will breed fast and freely

    More...

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Help the Tiger!

Learn more about tigers

General information: Saving the tiger: Different subspecies:
Pavel Fomenko has helped catch up to 2,000 poachers in a single year. Here he takes us through what his work entails in protecting the world's most iconic animal.

Tiger videos | Tiger pictures

Tigers are...

  • On the brink of extinction
  • Suffering from rampant and systematic poaching
  • More numerous in US zoos alone than in all the world's forests put together
  • At the top of the food chain
  • Solitary hunters
  • The biggest cat species
  • Uniquely patterned: no two tigers look exactly the same
  • Losing ground: 93% of their historic range has been lost

Tiger news

4 subspecies gone already

Less than 100 years ago, tigers prowled forests from eastern Turkey and the Caspian region of Western Asia, across the Indian subcontinent and Indochina, north to the Russian Far East, and south to the Indonesian islands of Bali, Java and Sumatra.

But today, most live in isolated pockets spread across increasingly fragmented forests, in just 7% of their former range. 

3 subspecies –  the Bali, Caspian, and Javan tiger – became extinct in the 20th century, and many scientists believe a 4th, the South China tiger, is “functionally extinct”.

The other 5 may soon disappear

The future of wild tigers is at a tipping point, with the population at its lowest level ever – possibly as few as 3,200 remain.
 
Alarmingly, these remaining tigers are systematically being poached across the forests of Asia, largely to meet the demands of a continuing illegal trade in tiger parts. They have already been completely exterminated from some tiger reserves.

To make matters worse, the tiger's habitat and prey continue to disappear due to agriculture expansion, logging, and rapid development.

Without immediate, strong action to save the tiger, wild populations may disappear altogether by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

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