Tigers of the World

It's World Tiger Day tomorrow (the 29th of July)! The tiger is undoubtedly the world's favourite animal, but many of us are probably not aware of the fact that the species is distributed into 9 sub-species across South and South-East Asia and the Russian Far-East (I myself could never recall the 9 names each time someone asked me what the races were, and so I decided to draw this poster!). These are the Siberian, Caspian, South China, Bengal, Indochinese, Malayan, Sumatran, Javan and Balinese Tigers.

The Siberian Tiger is the largest tiger in the world, while the Sumatran the smallest (taking the title away from the Balinese after its unfortunate extinction in the middle of the 20th century due to hunting). More unfortunate is the fact that all races of tigers today are either endangered or critically endangered, and the South China Tiger is already presumed to be extinct in the wild. While the Bengal Tiger is the most common race compared to its other cousins, the animal itself is endangered with a constantly shrinking distribution.

The caricatured poster illustrates the 9 sub-species and roughly plots their respective home-ranges. Note that the range of the Caspian Tiger extended farther into the west, along the Caspian Sea, but these areas have been left out since the race is now extinct. What struck me while drawing the poster was that I was having to render three beautiful animals- the Caspian Tiger, the Javan Tiger and the Balinese Tiger, black-and-white to indicate that they are extinct today. What a pity it is that the three animals do not feature in their original orange-and-white glory, but I hope these ghosts serve as a reminder to me and you that we need to ensure that the other 6 tigers remain coloured on the map!

The prints are available as posters and merchandise. For international orders, please visit my Redbubble store here.

For orders within India, the prints and merchandise can be ordered by e-mailing me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com.  The prices for the prints and goodies for Indian orders are mentioned below-

(Canvas for the coffee mug)