The Tiger

The question in the title in inaccurate. We know that tigers in the wild like to spend many hours in a pool or river. Although, I am talking about Bengal tigers or perhaps Sumatran tigers and in either case I'm referring to tigers in Asia living in warm/hot climates because this is why they like to spend many hours in pools. Being very large animals, they can get very hot because they are able to conserve heat. The best way to dissipate heat is to have cold water running over you which draws away the body heat. And so, tigers like water to cool off and they are perfectly okay swimming in water as well. Tigers like water to cool off and stay cooler. Image by UpTownGrl from Pixabay Tigers can swim two or 3 miles in the sea if required. They are great swimmers but this seems to be in stark comparison to domestic cats. But is it in stark comparison?  That is the key question because there is a lot of misinformation being bandied around the Internet about how domestic cats hate water. ...

Bearing in mind global warming and also bearing in mind that tigers love water, it is unsurprising to see a party of them lounging around in a nice pool in a reserve. The wildlife ranger who posted the video to Twitter via a colleague says that river sources sometimes start in tiger reserves and therefore tiger conservation in India is key to their water and food security. What I think he is saying is that if you protect the Bengal tigers in India you by necessity protect their reserves and in protecting the reserves you protect the water source which keeps billions of Indians alive! Does that sound right? Our tiger reserves are source of water to billions of Indian’s as many major river originates from them. Success of tiger conservation in India is key to our water & food security. Here a family of the big cat enjoying the onset of monsoons 💕💕 (As received from a colleague) pic.twitter.com/cnIk5A8ud2 — Susanta Nanda IFS (@susantananda3) August 9, 2022 Note : This is an embedde...

It is well known that tigers are excellent swimmers. In the hot season in India and elsewhere they spend a lot of the daytime in water half submerged to keep cool. They like water. So how far can they swim? My research indicates that there are records of tigers sometimes visiting islands in the Sunda Strait. In this stretch of water there are strong tidal currents of more than 4 km/h. Tigers like water. Photo in public domain. The map below shows you the location of the Sunda Straits and below that there are two photographs which give you a feel for the geography of that area. Sunda Strait. Photo; Google Maps. Sunda Strait. Photo: Google Maps. There are several islands in the Sunda Straits but the closest appear to be around 2.5 km from the mainland. The island in the middle of the Straits is about 15 km from the mainland. Taking the shorter distance, it is still a substantial effort for a tiger to swim 2.5 km in a 4 km/h current. The Ranthambore National Park, in India, we...