The world's tiger population has plummeted by 95 percent from the start of the 20th century to as few as 5,000.

I must say that again, it seems too awful to say out loud. There are roughly 5000 tigers left in the world !

Why am I surprised ? In Asia, tiger skins can sell for $15,000 while in Vietnam a skeleton, the bones widely believed by gullible men to be an aphrodisiac, can fetch as much as $25,000.

Photo : A Sumatran tiger cub greeting a sibling at Taronga Zoo in Sydney October, 2004. (Will Burgess/Reuters)