Is it theoretically possible to restore the Tiger population to 100,000?

Question

The current global Tiger population is roughly 5100 according to Wikipedia. With habitat destruction and poaching continuing and no effective improvement in conservation, most likely the Tiger population will continue to decrease. I'm wondering what is the theoretical maximum population to which the Tiger species could be restored. Suppose poaching and habitat destruction stopped today and conservation efforts were increased drastically, so the only factors limiting population growth are the natural dynamics between the species and its prey. Could we then restore the global population of tigers to its pre-20th century level of 100,000?

Answer 1

It's really hard to define that specifically, as there are so many variables that could possibly happen relating to this question. (i.e. hunting/poaching of tigers is completely eliminated). Mathematically it would be

5100 * x^85 = 100,000 if we assume that growth is constant. (another variable to consider). So that would mean it would take about 85 years for the population to rise to 100,000, and each female would have to produce about 1.036 offspring a year. This shouldn't be a limiting factor though. Technically in a theoretical sense, you could get the population size to increase to that number but in reality that's a very hard number to reach especially since the territorial range is no longer available or as easily accessible as before. You would have to worry about the global population bottlenecking.