A photoarticle in Wired.com says there are an estimated 4,500 to 7,500 wild snow leopards left in the Central Asian mountains. This is more than the number of tigers left in the wild, which is estimated to be only about 3,200.

See also: BBC tracks down tigers in the Himalayas - Chinese wineries farm tigers for bones

BBC News reports that two liger cubs, the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger, are being nursed by a dog at the Xixiakou Wildlife Zoo in China after the cubs' mother stopped feeding them. The ligers are very rare and are believed to only result from matings in captivity.

Residents of the village of Hedge End, in southern England, called police after spotting a white tiger in a field near a local golf course. Armed officers and a police helicopter responded, along with staff from nearby Marwell Zoo.

As the police on the ground approached the tiger, they saw that it was not moving, and themal imaging equipment in the helicopter showed no body heat. At that point, the downdraft from the 'copter caused the tiger to roll over, and police realised they were stalking a life-size plush toy.

Police later commented, "It is being treated as lost property but we don't know how it came to be in the field and whether it may have been a hoax."

The BBC celebrates the successes of the Russian Tiger Response Team, while noting that a cull is not likely to be successful in the case of the white-nosed bats.

Also recently covered was the death of Wombles creator Elisabeth Beresford.

According to the Associated Press, the World Wildlife Fund estimates no tigers will survive in the wild by 2022 – ironically, the next Chinese Zodiac year of the tiger.

The WWF estimates there are currently only approximately 3,200 tigers alive in the wild, compared to nearly 100,000 a century ago. Three tiger subspecies, the Bali, Javan, and Caspian, are already extinct.

The main reasons for the decline in wild tiger populations are poaching and habitat loss. The 2022 date is only for wild tigers; there are currently more tigers estimated to live in U.S. zoos than in their native, wild habitat.

Creating a feline character? You might want to decide on their habitat before picking a coat.

Research by the University of Bristol's School of Experimental Psychology has found correlations between the complexity or irregularity of a cat's pattern and its habitat:

[...] cats living in dense habitats, in the trees, and active at low light levels, are the most likely to be patterned.

The researchers admitted that this rule did not explain the coat of cheetahs, who have evolved spots despite a preference for open plains.

The team discounted suggestions that coat patterns in big cats were linked to social hierarchy or gender, as they did not differ significantly between such individuals. Their paper, Why the leopard got its spots, was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The BBC's Natural History team has found evidence of breeding tigers in the Hymalayan mountains of Bhutan, over 4000m above sea level, using a set of remote cameras.

The discovery sparked hopes of extending a 'conservation corridor' through the mountains.

In other news, the woman who dumped a cat in a wheelie bin has been charged with causing unnecessary suffering and an unsuitable environment.

When airport officials in Bangkok decided to X-ray a woman's luggage they were surprised to see a beating heart. It looked like the woman had a cat in her bag but in truth it was an endangered baby tiger. The 2-month-old cub had been drugged and put in her luggage with a number of toy tigers in an attempt to disguise it.

The cub is now in care of the department of national parks, wildlife and plant conservation. The woman, who was bound for Iran, is being interrogated to discover their final destination.

See more: Pictures of the rescued cub at National Geographic

The hand-reared tiger, Panjo, who escaped on Monday was found by sniffer dogs today. He's now back at home waiting for the vet to visit.

No wildlife authorities have come to take him away and his owners have repeatedly said they posses the necessary paperwork to keep their four tigers. Regardless, the incident has raised criticism from the NSPCA over whether wild animals should be kept as pets.

Panjo sometimes even sleeps on his owner's bed, but the 140kg tiger is not fully mature and may become less suitable as a pet as he grows.

It's probably been a dream of every fur to have a wild animal as a pet — but for Goosey Fernandes it's become a nightmare since his pet tiger, Panjo, has escaped.

Panjo was being driven to the veterinarian on the back of a bakkie between Groblersdal and Delmas when he escaped.

Although sniffer dogs are being brought in to find the tiger, so far it has been without success.

The BBC reports on the spread of Chinese tiger-farms, now estimated to contain more tigers than currently in the wild. The farms are popular destinations for tourists, but allegedly contain wineries in which the bones of dead animals are steeped to produce tiger bone wine.

As international law forbids the sale of tiger products, lion bones are often used - their price has reportedly risen 30-fold in the past two years.

John "The Gneech" Robey's popular furry webcomic, The Suburban Jungle (Starring Tiffany Tiger), turns seven in February, 2006. Billed as "the life, loves, and career of aspiring supermodel and ferocious predator, Tiffany Tiger," Suburban Jungle (or SJ as it's often called) begins its eighth year with the titular tiger hiring a pair of private investigators named Squash and Stretch (an otter and ferret, respectively) to find her missing roommate, Yin the Giant Panda, who has been kidnapped by aliens.

Suburban Jungle is romantic comedy with the occasional out-there twist; over the course of its seven-years-and-counting, it has received such recognition as "tasty biscuits" from Websnark, and artist/author/creator The Gneech was Guest of Honor at this past year's Mephit Furmeet in Memphis, Tennessee. The strip runs Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with "Grab Bag Saturday," ... "except when it doesn't." It can be found at www.suburbanjungle.com.

A rare Chinese tiger brought to South Africa to learn how to hunt has died, dealing a fresh blow to efforts to save the species from extinction.

Born in a Chinese zoo, "Hope" was sent to South Africa as a cub with his mate "Cathay" in 2003 for a pioneering experiment seen by some as the last chance to preserve the species — a "rewilding program" to encourage the animals to hunt on their own.

"Hope had an infection and he stopped eating meat. He died on Saturday evening," Li Quan, the founder of the "Save China's Tigers" foundation, told Reuters on Monday.

[Read ABC News Wire article]

A Siberian tiger attacked and killed a teenage girl who was posing for photos at a family-run animal sanctuary Thursday in southeast Kansas, authorities said.

The Labette County Sheriff's office identified the victim as Haley R. Hilderbrand, 17, of Altamont. A statement from the office said Hilderbrand was at the Lost Creek Animal Sanctuary posing for photos with the 7-year-old tiger, which was being restrained by its handler, when the animal turned and attacked her.

Officers and handlers killed the animal. Emergency personnel were not able to revive Hilderbrand.

Read CNN article

An untamed jungle cat - albeit a soft and cuddly one - scared the stuffing out of some suburban commuters passing through the Bronx yesterday, prompting cops and city officials to try and catch the tiger by the tail.

It wasn't too hard.

"The police wanted to know where the tiger was," said German Ortiz, 34, the super of 1194 Brook Ave. "I told them, 'It's mine, but don't worry, it's not real.'"

Read the rest of the article from the New York Daily News