The Tiger

Scientists in China wanted to assess the personality traits of Amur tigers (Siberian tigers), which I think is an interesting concept not tried before as far as I know. They probably struggled to distinguish between different personality traits as described in humans but came up with two types: majestic and steady.  In general terms they found that the majestic tigers were healthier because they had a higher status and had (by the looks of it) first pickings of prey animals. And they mate more often. That last point begs the question as to whether majestic tigers are coveted by tigresses. Do tigresses pick and choose their male mates? It looks that way. Female lions prefer males with dark and great manes for instance. It seems that female wild cats have a method for picking out the healthiest males in order to produce healthy offspring. Tigers described as majestic are healthier than others and have sex more often. Image: MikeB. AI summary This section is a summary of the study as ...

A specialist eye veterinarian decided that a 17-year-old Sumatran tiger, Ratna, had injured her left eye when, perhaps, it had been jabbed by a stick of bamboo in her enclosure. Sometime earlier she had had a cataract operation on the eye but in this instance, it was a first. Apparently, cataract operations on tigers are not that uncommon but it was a first to remedy a corneal ulcer and a deteriorating eye. Ratna a Sumatran tiger with corneal ulcer in her left eye. Photo: Shepreth Wildlife Park The surgeon is Dr. David Williams from the Queen's Veterinary School Hospital at the University of Cambridge. After two months of post-operation monitoring, he declared that he was delighted with the outcome and that he was able to "sign Ratna off". The eye has fully healed. Corneal surgery is not uncommon on domestic cats and dogs but it requires a lot more anaesthetic on an adult tiger, for obvious reasons. Ratna lives it Shepreth Wildlife Park near Cambridge, UK. She was move...

The Siberian tiger population, a.k.a. Amur tigers, are already critically endangered because of their low population numbers at about 500. Conservationists are engaged in a rearguard action to save them and a recent attempt at artificial insemination at a zoo tragically killed the tiger . I now read that they are at risk of being killed by canine distemper (Scientific American online).  Siberian tigers are contracting canine distemper. Photo: Jeannette Rudloff Zonar GmbH and Alamy Stock Photo. The experts discovered this disease in Siberian tigers in 2003 when a young tiger wandered into a Russian village on the Chinese border. The scientists determined that she suffered from canine distemper. She died not long after her discovery.  I had thought that canine distemper was not zoonotic and therefore it could not be transmitted from dogs to cats. We are not told how the tigers are getting this disease (but see below). Let's just say that Siberian tigers are suffering from dis...