Wild tigers require large prey to survive, but bushmeat hunting depletes deer, wild pigs, and other prey species — leaving tigers to starve or conflict with humans over livestock.
Tigers suffering from prey depletion experience chronic nutritional stress — a welfare state of prolonged hunger that impairs immune function, reduces body condition, compromises reproductive success, and increases vulnerability to injury. A tiger that cannot find adequate wild prey may attempt to subsist on smaller animals, expanding its home range at the cost of increased energy expenditure, or turning to livestock — which brings it into fatal conflict with humans. Starvation is a prolonged and painful process; tigers on the edge of nutritional sufficiency experience chronic suffering that is invisible to conservationists focused on population counts. Prey recovery is therefore simultaneously a conservation and a welfare intervention.