My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and am now a writer who has

published three books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.

                              By the early 20th Century, the species of tigers that had roamed all over the

Korean peninsula had completely disappeared. There may be some tigers still alive in the upper

extreme corner of the Korean peninsula in North Korea and part of Russia, but that is speculation.

For all due purposes the Korean tiger is extinct. Some Korean nationalists have accused the

Japanese of hunting the Korean tiger to extinction. However, I believe that the extinction of the

tiger is more complicated. Long before the Japanese took over Korea, Koreans were hunting

the tiger in ever greater numbers. When the Japanese took over the Korean peninsula, they

started to also extensively hunt the tiger and many Koreans who feared being attacked by tigers

had set fire to whole tracts of forests thus destroying a lot of the tiger's habitat. The Korean War

also had a devastating impact on what was left of Korea's wildlife, and the fact that the tiger was

also in competition with the leopard and black bear may have led to its extinction. The Japanese

we must remember also hunted the leopards but the last one reportedly killed was in South Korea

in 1970. Hence, the leopards survived the Japanese.  There is speculation that the tigers may be in the

Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. However, this is mere guessing and no sightings have

been made of any tigers. There have been paw prints of what may be tigers in the extreme

northern half of the Korean peninsula, but that is still not conclusive proof that there are any tigers

left in the Korean peninsula. So we are left with a mystery if any tigers still inhabit the Korean

peninsula, and if any how many and can the tiger population come back. I am simply convinced

that no one group of people or any other circumstance alone wiped out the Korean tigers.