The tiger is one of the most iconic animals on earth, but the largest of the big cats is on the brink of extinction. Tigers are globally listed as "Endangered" on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Two of the remaining sub-species — Malayan and Sumatran — are "Critically Endangered." As recently as 100 years ago, as many as 100,000 wild tigers roamed across Asia. Today, about 3,900 tigers are left in the wild, occupying a mere four percent of their former range. This catastrophic population decline is driven by a range of threats, including poaching for the illegal wildlife trade, overhunting of prey species by local people, habitat loss and fragmentation, and human-tiger conflict.