Tiger disinterested in attacking deer 50 yards away

The video on this page shows a Bengal tiger in India (I believe) sauntering down a road and behind him/her is one of their classic prey animals, a deer, a mere 50 yards away. The tiger is entirely disinterested, probably sated on a meal not long before but it is a slightly incongruous video because we are used to seeing tigers attacking prey animals at anytime and anywhere within their habitat. This is not the case.


Interestingly, when you read about the iconic tiger, you don't really anywhere about tigers shunning their dinner; shunning the chance to attack a prey animal such as we see in the video. We think they simply don't do it and attack anything that comes before them on their travels. This apparently is incorrect.

Bengal tiger ignores prime prey behind it no more than 50 metres away. Screenshot.

But if a tiger is going to be satisfied with eating almost anything they can catch as my reference book states, it implies that they will attack almost any prey animal but once again this is not the case as seen in the video. The great white hunter Jim Corbett who has a tiger reserve named after him says that tigers sometimes cache kills. I mean they hide or move their kill to a place far from the place where it was killed.

"Tigers will eat almost anything they can catch" - Wild Cats of the World - Mel and Fiona Sunquist.

Almost all terrestrial vertebrates are potential tiger prey and tigers often take large prey that are most abundant. Often the prey of the Bengal tiger is a spotted deer or a medium-sized chital. The kind of animal we see in the video.

For example, the majority of prey animals of the tiger in Chitwan National Park are deer including sambar, chital and hog deer. In that national park dear hair was identified in over 80% of tiger faeces.

Tigers will kill any animal that puts itself in a vulnerable position. The animals that we see in the video are in a vulnerable position, but the tiger is disinterested as mentioned.

There are a few animals which appear to be immune to tiger predation namely adult rhinoceroses and elephants. These animals are rarely killed but tigers do kill animals that are considerably larger than themselves.

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