In 1800 Java retained extensive forest and tigers were widespread across the island. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the human population grew steeply and lowland forest was converted to agriculture. By the 1940s tigers were largely confined to remaining mountain forest, and by the 1970s to a handful of reserves, principally Meru Betiri in the east.
Habitat loss removed the prey base as well as the cover. Rusa deer populations were reduced by disease and hunting, and tigers turned increasingly to livestock, which drew retaliatory killing. Poisoning was used widely. Surveys in Meru Betiri in the late 1970s found tracks but the last confirmed sightings date to that period, and searches in the 1990s produced nothing verified.
Recent genetic work grouped the Javan, Balinese and Sumatran tigers as the Sunda tiger lineage, distinguishing them from mainland Asian tigers. The Sumatran tiger, the sole survivor of that lineage, is Critically Endangered. A 2024 report of a hair sample matching Javan tiger DNA has been published but is not accepted as evidence of a surviving population.