Tigers Were Just Declared Extinct In Cambodia

​Tigers in Cambodia are "functionally extinct," according to the World Wildlife Fund, which has now introduced a plan this week to work with neighboring countries in Asia to reintroduce tigers. 

"Today, there are no longer any breeding populations of tigers left in Cambodia, and they are therefore considered functionally extinct," WWF said in a statement, according to British newspaper The Guardian. 

Tigers once roamed the dry forests of Cambodia, but, as The Guardian points out, have been wiped out by poachers targeting both the big cats themselves and the animals they prey on. The last tiger seen on camera in Cambodia was all the way back in 2007. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, meanwhile, estimates that the global tiger population is just 2,154.

The Cambodian government is asking countries like India, Thailand and Malaysia to give it a small number of wild tigers. "We want two male tigers and five to six females tigers for the start," an official told reporters, hoping that, you know, the rules of tiger attraction will play out at that point. Part of the plan to reintroduce the animals also includes a stepped-up police presence so they're not killed by hunters in future.