The decline of all these cat species began several hundred years ago, but increased in speed in the second half of the nineteenth century. The demographic and ecological changes that have occurred in Central Asia over the last 150 years have special relevance to the issue of cat extinctions. For human populations, large cats were an important presence in their lives, with attacks on livestock the common events that framed the relationship between local populations and large cats. By the 1930s, both tiger and cheetah were rapidly disappearing throughout Central Asia. Sustained hunting, a rapid increase in land reclamation, immigration, and growth of local populations created untenable conditions for these animals in all parts of their habitat. No large predator has expanded its absolute population in this century. The snow leopard is the only large cat in Central Asia that will definitely be around at the start of the next century.