New NG Book - TIGERS FOREVER: Saving the World s Most Endangered Big Cats

WASHINGTON (Oct. 9, 2013)-As award-winning National Geographic photographer and big cat advocate Steve Winter knows, tigers are formidable creatures, yet they desperately need our help. Encounters with humans and destruction of the tiger's habitat threaten the future of these beloved animals. Less than 3,200 survive in the wild. In partnership with Panthera, world leader in and largest funder of big cat conservation, Winter and environmental journalist Sharon Guynup team up to offer a new book, TIGERS FOREVER: Saving the World's Most Endangered Big Cats (National Geographic Books; Nov. 12, 2013; hardcover), which shares poignant images and stories of tigers in their fight for survival.

Over the last decade, Winter has traveled to India, Sumatra, Myanmar and Thailand to capture on film tigers' most private moments, both tender and terrifying. TIGERS FOREVER combines more than 120 of Winter's incredible photographs of these cats with stories of prominent tiger conservationists, including biologist George Schaller, Panthera CEO Alan Rabinowitz and wildlife filmmaker Belinda Wright. These advocates offer insights into the fate of tigers, the best solutions to prevent their extinction and ways in which community involvement provides a key to the animals' future.

The book shows tigers in their natural forest habitats as they stalk, eat, wade, rest and groom. Unfortunately, these habitats also pose many threats: Poachers injure and kill tigers for their valuable skin and bones; loggers destroy forests by clear-cutting swaths of trees; and nearby human populations hunt tigers' traditional prey, leaving them without food. Tigers' ranges increasingly overlap with human settlements, bringing humans into ever-greater conflict with these animals.

Because of these threats, tigers are closer to extinction than any other big cats. Fewer than 3,200 tigers remain in the wild - down from about 100,000 a century ago. Winter and Guynup assure readers that tigers are resilient and that, by taking steps on the ground to protect them, their native habitats and their sources of prey, we can still save them. A portion of the book's proceeds will benefit partner organization Panthera's Tigers Forever program.

TIGERS FOREVER is part of National Geographic's overall effort to halt the decline of big cats in the wild through its Big Cats Initiative. As part of this effort, the Society has teamed up with the Nat Geo WILD television channel on a public awareness campaign, Cause an Uproar. More information is available at causeanuproar.org. Winter's work was partly supported by the National Geographic Society.

About the Authors

Steve Winter is an award-winning wildlife photographer and Panthera's director of media. His work can be viewed at stevewinterphoto.com. Sharon Guynup is an environmental journalist and photographer. Visit sharonguynup.com.

About National Geographic Books & Home Entertainment

National Geographic Books & Home Entertainment creates and distributes books, videos and other print and digital media that inform, engage and entertain diverse audiences about our world. Annually, the group publishes more than 125 new books for adults, families and kids and releases 250+ new DVDs and digital downloads of the Society's films and TV shows; these National Geographic titles are available in more than 35 local-language editions. While special photographic and film collections, travel books, nature shows, birding guides and atlases are a core focus of the Society's products, books and videos on subjects as diverse as animals, the human mind, history, world cultures and the cosmos are also produced. For more information, visit facebook.com/NatGeoBooks and nationalgeographic.com/books.

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