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The Indian tiger, Panthera Tigris (Linnaeus), is the national animal of India.

The combination of grace, strength, agility and enormous power earned the tiger the title national animal of India. The Tiger - Lord of the Indian Jungles, is the National Animal of India. The tiger is the symbol of India’s wealth of wildlife. A wild animal from cat family with a thick yellow coat of fur with dark stripes. The combination of grace, strength, agility and enormous power has earned the tiger its pride of place as the national animal of India.

Out of eight races of the species known, the Indian race, the Royal Bengal Tiger, is found throughout the country except in the north-western region and also in the neighbouring countries, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Tigers are now getting extinct.

In April 1973, the Government of India launched ‘Project Tiger’ to check the decreasing population of Tigers. Under this project 23 tiger reserves have been established covering an area of 33,126 sq. km. The Government of India, under its Project Tiger programme, started a massive effort to preserve the tiger population in 1973. Today, the tiger advances as a symbol of India’s conservation of itself its wildlife heritage.

With the launch of Project tiger in 1973, the tiger population showed a gradual increase and the census of 1993 puts the tiger population of the country at 3,750. Under Project tiger 23 tiger reserves have been established throughout the country, covering an area of 33,406 sq. km. Unfortunately due to negligence of authorities and poaching the tiger population of India is decreasing at an alarming rate. In fact, some of the tiger reserves do not have any tigers at all. Many conservationists are of the opinion that unless the Project Tiger is critically reviewed and analyzed at this juncture to make it more ‘tiger friendly’.

Facts about Tigers:

1. A group of tigers is called a streak.
2. The roar of a tiger can be heard more than a mile away.
3. Tigers keep their claws sharp for hunting by pulling in their retractable claws into a protective sheath
4. Most tigers have more than 100 stripes, and no two tigers have identical stripes.
5. Tigers have been classified by scientists into eight subspecies: Indian (or Bengal), Indo-Chinese, Sumatran, Amur (or Siberian), South China, Caspian (extinct), Java (extinct), and Bali (extinct).