In the 19th century, tigers occurred in: • the
Eastern Anatolia region, which is considered to have been the westernmost area where tigers occurred. The only confirmed record in
Iraq dates to 1887 when a tiger was shot near
Mosul, which is considered to have been a migrant from southeastern Turkey. • the extreme southeast of the Caucasus, such as in hilly and lowland forests of the
Talysh Mountains, in the
Lenkoran Lowlands, in the lowland forests of
Göytəpə, Jalilabad, from where tigers moved into the eastern plains of the
Trans-Caucasus up to the
Don River basin; the
Arasbaran and
Zangezur Mountains of northwestern Persia. •
Central Asia, such as in southwestern
Turkmenia along the
Atrek River and its tributaries, and the
Sumbar and
Chandyr Rivers; in the western and southwestern parts of
Kopet-Dag; in the environs of
Ashkabad in the northern foothills; in Afghanistan along the upper reaches of
Hari-Rud at
Herat, and along the jungles in the lower reaches of the river; around
Tejen and
Murgap and along the
Kushka and Kashan rivers; in the
Amu Darya basin as far the
Aral Sea and along the entire coast of the Aral Sea; along the
Syr-Darya to the
Fergana Valley as far as
Tashkent and the western spur of
Talas Alatau; along the
Chu and
Ili Rivers; all along the southern shore of
Lake Balkhash and northwards into the southern
Altai Mountains, and to southeastern
Transbaikal or
Western Siberia in the east. In China, it occurred in the
Tarim,
Manasi River and
Lop Nur basins.
Wild boar was the numerically dominant ungulate in forested habitats, along watercourses, in
reed beds and in thickets of the Caspian and Aral Seas. Where watercourses penetrated deep into desert areas, suitable wild pig and tiger habitat was often linear, only a few kilometers wide at most.
Red and
roe deer occurred in forests around the
Black Sea to the western side and around the southern side of the Caspian Sea in a narrow belt of forest cover. Roe deer occurred in forested areas south of Lake Balkhash.
Bactrian deer lived in the narrow belt of forest habitat on the southern border of the Aral Sea, and southward along the Syr-Darya and Amu Darya rivers.
Local extinction The demise of the Caspian tiger began with the
Russian colonisation of Turkestan during the late 19th century. Its extirpation was caused by several factors: • Tigers were killed by large parties of sportsmen and military personnel who also hunted tiger prey species such as the
Bactrian deer, and middle asian
Wild boar. This wild pig's range underwent a rapid decline between the middle of the 19th century and the 1930s due to overhunting, natural disasters, and diseases such as
swine fever and
foot-and-mouth disease, which caused large and rapid die-offs. By 1910, cotton plants were estimated to occupy nearly one-fifth of Turkestan's
arable land, with about one half located in the
Fergana Valley.
Last sightings In Iraq, a tiger was killed near
Mosul in 1887. In Turkey, a pair of tigers was allegedly killed in the area of
Selçuk in 1943. Several tiger skins found in the early 1970s near
Uludere indicated the presence of a tiger population in eastern Turkey. Questionnaire surveys conducted in this region revealed that one to eight tigers were killed each year until the mid-1980s, and that tigers likely had survived in the region until the early 1990s. Due to lack of interest, in addition to security and safety reasons, no further field surveys were carried out in the area. One of the last known tigers was shot in
Golestan National Park in 1953. Another individual was sighted in
Golestān Province in 1958. In
Turkmenistan, the last known tiger was killed in January 1954 in the
Sumbar River valley in the
Kopet-Dag Range. It reportedly disappeared in the
Manasi River basin in the
Tian Shan Range west of
Ürümqi in the 1960s. In
Kazakhstan, the last Caspian tiger was recorded in 1948, in the environs of the
Ili River, the last known stronghold in the region of
Lake Balkhash. ==Behaviour and ecology==