The Tiger

When you see super vulnerable tiger cubs following mother in the wild, it is max. cuteness. They are so tiny. You feel that they might not survive even with the careful attention of their mother as she has to disappear for periods of time find a meal. And she can't be sure how long it will take. She'll hide her cubs, but other predators may take advantage. So, what do the books say about predation rates in tiger cubs in the wild? The mother stays with her young cubs during the first few weeks of their lives. Her movements are therefore restricted. Tigresses are cautious and secretive when they have young cubs. They move them around frequently if the den is disturbed or threatened. Cubs begin to follow their mother when they are about two months old. They don't join her in the hunt but wait quietly until she calls them. The mother takes a lot of care to avoid placing her cubs in danger. By six months of age the cubs are weaned but they can't kill for themselves. I would

It has been known for a long time, but a study confirmed that tigers don't like the presence of tourists. The stress levels, as measured by the amount of stress hormones in faeces, are such that it can be a barrier to mating and breeding thereby seriously undermining conservation efforts. "Tourists can both promote conservation and damage it." - Michael Tourist vehicles near a tiger at Sariska Tiger Reserve. Photo by Subhadeep Bhattacharjee The tiger is on its knees in terms of conservation, so this is important. Tourism helps to fund the reserves. Almost all Bengal tigers are in India's tiger reserves nowadays. It is a tricky problem to crack. But the study (' Physiological stress responses of tigers due to anthropogenic disturbance especially tourism in two central Indian tiger reserves '. Conservation Physiology ) calls into question the modus operandi of the tiger project conservation program. Tigers in reserves are great money spinners. One tiger is said

Wild dogs in India are called 'dholes'. Their scientific name is Cuon alpinus . A pack of wild dogs can kill an individual tiger. There are records of it. Before I describe a fight between a tigress and a pack of dholes, I should tell you that the Indian wild dog is endangered and according to my research there are no more than 2,500 Indian, adult wild dogs left on the planet. Indian wild dogs 'dholes'. Image in public domain. This simple fact must reduce any encounters between a group of wild dogs and an individual tiger in India. Therefore, it is a little bit self-indulgent really to discuss and analyse the killing of a tiger by a band of wild dogs, but I will do so to satisfy the curiosity of any reader. Kenneth Anderson witnessed and described a battle between a pack of wild dogs and a tigress which took place near Mysore in southern India. His account is described in his book: Nine maneaters and one rogue published in New York by EP Dutton and Co in 1955. Here is

A point worth noting is that tigers in the south are quite different in appearance to those in the north of planet. So, I am comparing the very rare and endangered Sumatran and Indonesian tigers with the Amur tiger and even the Bengal tiger which not only lives throughout India in reserves but also on the foothills of Bhutan 4,000 meters above sea level.  Map showing approximate location of northern and southern tiger subspecies. There is a gradual increase in size as you go north. The larger size helps tigers to conserve body heat in cold climates while the opposite is true in hotter climates. Image: MikeB The difference between the 'southern tigers' and those in the north are as follows. The differences are due to evolution. They are considerably smaller. For example, in tropical areas adult male tigers average about 2.2-2.5 metres in length which is about half a metre shorter than males from northern areas. They weigh only 100-140 kg. Adult females in tropical areas weigh be

Here is a picture on social media of a Bengal tiger about to be released 'into the jungle'. It seems that he was held in captivity for a period of time and was suddenly presented with the real world where he will have to fend for himself. Shock horror! 😎. It has become a 'funny cat picture' and entertained internet users, but there is a serious side to it which deserves discussion. Tiger about to be released looks shocked. Misleading image? I have a sneaking suspicion that people are being misled by the image because they have humanized the tiger. And images can mislead as they capture a fleeting moment. If there is a video, you'd have a different point of view I suspect. The human interpretation is that he is aghast at the prospect of joining the real world. His mouth hangs open and his eyes are wide and startled. It looks like he is saying to himself, "Do I really have to go out there and start killing animals for a living?!" Well, yes you do 😊✔️. But

Screenshot This is an interesting video which shows young men in India approaching a tiger in the undergrowth, in the forest, and then they watch it cross the road and disappear. They want to get nearer to the tiger to get a video of it. The person who tweeted the video described it as "wired" behaviour. What they mean is that these young men are performing stereotypical young men behaviour in approaching a tiger because they want to capture that all-important video. It is hardwired into the brains of young men particularly to behave in this sort of macho, excitable way. But the person who made the tweet stated that this is bad behaviour because the tiger doesn't want to attract the attention of young Indian men and if the men approach too much and if the tiger feels threatened, it may attack. And in any case, this is an example where the tiger should be left alone in their own habitat to live their lives the way they want to live it. It is the way you create harmony betw

As a consequence of the spontaneous genetic mutation of a recessive gene in a normal tiger in the wild, the offspring (or some of the offspring) were described as golden. In crude terms these were mutant tigers, and the recessive gene became visible in the appearance of the tiger i.e., the phenotype because the tigers were inbred which allows recessive genes to become visible in how they affect the appearance of the animal. Golden tiger. Photo: Pixabay. So, I think is fair to say that the first golden tigers were created because of inbreeding which indicates a confined population of tigers perhaps living in a fragmented distribution which meant that tigers had to mate with each other in a relatively small group resulting in inbreeding. There were two groups of golden tigers: those in the wild and those in captivity. My research, thanks to Sarah Hartwell, indicates that the last recorded wild golden tigers were shot as a pair in 1932 in Mysore Pradesh, India. Hartwell thinks that this m