Tyger! Tyger!

Few animals in the last century have suffered more than the tiger. In 1900 there were 100,000. Today, the World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that fewer than 3,500 remain in the wild, many in isolated pockets of Asia and far eastern Russia. Facing continued threats from shrinking habitats, human-animal conflict and poachers, only a handful of natural reserves can offer tourists reasonable assurances of spotting William Blake’s “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In the forests of the night.”

For now, the best opportunities are in India, which has at least half of the world’s remaining population of wild tigers. Most tiger adventures begin in one of the national parks in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Tiger safaris are available in the state’s Pench and Kanha National Parks, but the densest tiger population is found at Bandhavgarh National Park.

The former hunting preserve of the Maharaja of Rewa, Bandhavgarh’s forested valleys and grasslands are broken by the rocky Vindhya hills and the ruins of a prehistoric fort. With approximately 30 tigers in a 105-square-km reserve, a tiger sighting here is all but guaranteed at the right time of year. The park’s optimal conditions can come at a cost, however: lolling cats can be accompanied by a traffic jam of a dozen vehicles filled with photo-snapping tourists.

The more adventurous seeker of tigers should head to Sunderbans National Park, a vast mangrove forest in the Indian state of West Bengal. Spotting a tiger in this wilderness of tidal rivers and mudflats is far more unlikely than in Madhya Pradesh. Here the tigers have adapted to their watery environment and, when spotted, are often witnessed swimming, even in saline waters; indeed, one of the biggest threats to the population here is rising sea levels caused by climate change. Given the terrain, most safaris in the Sunderbans are by boat or canoe rather than jeep or pachyderm.

Other options for tiger viewing in India include Jim Corbett National Park in the state of Uttarakhand and Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan. There is hope that opportunities for seeing tigers in the wild might increase, although poaching, and local apathy and connivance are formidable barriers. At a summit in Russia in 2010, 13 countries where tigers still roam signed the first international agreement to address shrinking populations. Their goal is to double the wild tiger population by 2022—the next Chinese Year of the Tiger.