The Amur tiger, or Siberian tiger as it is also known, once lived across a large portion of northern China, the Korean peninsula, and the southernmost regions of eastern Russia.
During the early 20th Century, the Amur tiger was almost driven to extinction, as expanding human settlements, habitat loss and poaching wiped out this biggest of cats from over 90% of its range.
By the 1940s, just 20 to 30 individuals survived in the wild. The new study has identified that this recent "genetic bottleneck" - when the breeding population of tigers was so critically low - has decimated the Amur tiger gene pool.-Tigers in population crisis
Siberian tigers are incredible animals, they are the largest species of cat in the world. Unfortunately, they are one of the most endangered species in the world. In the wild they were fewer than three thousand, and the number is rapidly decreasing. I'm afraid it will soon disappear forever. Siberian Tiger
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