Task 5 Non-Fiction Tigers

Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow

Tigers are the largest of all cat species. They grow up to three and a half metres long and weigh as much as 300 kilograms. This makes tigers the third largest land carnivore. The only larger land meat-eaters are polar bears and brown bears. Tigers are not only large; they are also fast. They can sprint as fast as 65 kilometers per hour for short distances and leap as far as nine metres horizontally. This makes for an extremely dangerous pounce. One might not think that such large, fast, and ferocious creatures need help to survive, but they do. The tiger is an endangered species. Despite all of the tiger’s strengths, the future of the species is uncertain. Tigers face a very high risk of extinction. It is estimated that at the start of the 20th century, there were over 100,000 tigers living in the wild. By the turn of the century, the number of tigers outside of captivity had dwindled to just over 3,000. Humans are the major threat to tigers. This threat can be categorised in primarily two ways hunting and destroying habitat. Tigers are hunted for many reasons. People have long valued the famous striped skins. Although trading tiger skins is now illegal in most parts of the world, tiger pelts are worth around $10,000 on the black-market. Tigers have also been hunted as game. In other words, people hunt tigers solely for the thrill and the achievement of killing them. Humans have done considerable damage to the world’s tiger population through hunting, but perhaps more damage has been caused through the destruction of its habitat. Tigers once ranged widely across Asia, all the way from Turkey to the eastern coast of Russia. But over the past 100 years, tigers have lost 93% of their historic range. Instead of spanning all the way across Asia, the tiger population is now isolated in small pockets in south and southeastern Asia. In recent times, there have been organizations that are breeding tigers in captivity and reintroducing them into the wild. One organization in China has successfully brought tigers born in concrete cages to South Africa and taught them the necessary skills of a predator to survive in the wild. While this is just a small step, it shows that restoring the world’s tiger population is possible.

<<Moodle Quiz>>