Prowling, Malayan Tiger, Malaysia

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In the 1950s roughly 3000 Malayan tigers existed in the jungles of Malaysia. When I captured this photograph in 2003 their population was about 500. Since then, according to a survey conducted between 2016 and 2020, the Malayan tiger population has decreased by more than 70% to "less than 150". There have been no other surveys since. Camera traps, footprints, scat, and DNA testing of the scat tell us they are not yet extinct, but no one knows how many exist today. Malayan tigers are headed for almost certain extinction in the wild because of continuing habitat lost to palm oil plantations, poaching, and the abject failure of the Malaysian government to protect them.

Four of the world's nine tiger subspecies became extinct in the past century. Among the five that survive, the Malayan tiger is the least known, least supported, and closest to extinction. One hundred years ago the world's tigers numbered more than 100,000. Today there are about 3,890. All tigers are critically endangered, all populations are currently in decline, all face extinction, and all of this is due to human activity. The means to prevent more extinctions exist, but the human apetite for residential and commercial development, agriculture, aquaculture, energy production, mining, and hunting will ultimately prove fatal for tigers and most other forms of life.