新疆虎 is the Chinese name for the Xinjiang population of the Caspian tiger (
里海虎 / Panthera tigris virgata). They roamed the riparian forests along the Tarim and Manas rivers. Mass hunting campaigns, water diversion, and habitat collapse drove the local population extinct by the 1960s; the whole subspecies was declared extinct in the 1970s. Recent genetics studies show Caspian tigers were almost identical to the Amur/Siberian tiger, which fuels ongoing "rewilding" proposals.
