The Tiger

I believe that you can answer the question in the title quite scientifically. I'll try. We know how domestic cats play. The domestic cat is a domesticated North African wildcat. The wildcat is just another species of wild cat as is the tiger. So inherent in all wild cat species is the ability to enjoy playing. It doesn't matter whether you are a huge tiger or a small wildcat in Africa. To repeat, it is innate in them to enjoy playing. This is because it's both entertaining and a form of play-hunting. Note: the scientific books on the tiger don't mention playing. We have rely on YouTube and common sense! Big Cat Rescue white tiger playing. Video screenshot. It's a substitute for hunting. And this is probably another point worth making. You will see tigers playing, as you can see in the video, in captivity. In fact zookeepers are obliged to find ways to encourage their tigers to enjoy playing because it's the only way they can substitute the natural behaviour of h...

This is a well asked question. And obviously Bengal tigers do attack humans sometimes when they come into conflict with humans because they've been forced into conflict by humans. The Sundarbans, a vast delta which straddles India and Bangladesh, is the place where Bengal tigers most often come into conflict with people and these are people who work in this delta. Essentially there are too many people to accommodate the space required by the Bengal tiger. They require vast ranges of many square miles. Big male Bengal tiger saunters across road ignoring the motorcyclist and passenger. Photo: Twitter. However, Jim Corbett who has a tiger reserve named after him and who was a big game hunter turned conservationist many years ago, said that tigers have quite a nice disposition. He should know because he shot lots of them and he was a renowned expert on tigers. What he is essentially saying is that tigers have quite a nice character and are not inherently aggressive except when they ne...

Do tigers eat fish? Yes, is the answer but perhaps the better question is "Do tigers want to eat fish?" Fish is edible to a tiger but it is not a typical prey animal for the tiger. The fish is too small and they're not going to bump into a fish very often. Also they need to pray on large animals to sustain themselves but they are opportunistic hunters and each pretty well anything which presents itself to them. That's why you see in the video below a private zookeeper feeding his tigers with fish and they appear to be liking it a lot. I think the zoo is in South Africa as he has a South African accent. What I don't like a lot is this man's private zoo. It's horrible. South Africa has a poor reputation for wild animal welfare (e.g. canned lion hunts and selling lion body parts to China). But fortunately it answers the question. Tigers do eat fish but they won't go out of their way to find fish to eat because it is just is not viable to do so. They are f...

Even today in Asia tiger body parts are still extensively used by people to improve their well-being or status, or so they believe. The Chinese are particularly involved with this. The body parts are also often used in Chinese traditional medicine. However, you can go back a very long way indeed throughout history to see how humankind's reverence and admiration of the tiger has often been its demise. It is very odd that animals that people admire end up being killed by people because humankind likes to possess or eat a piece of that animal thinking that it benefits them. Tiger clavicle bone as a brooch. Photo: Tennants Auctioneers. For example, the tiger clavicle bone was often turned into a brooch. You can see one in the photograph above. This particular brooch is mounted in gold metal with a pin fastener. It is 7.5 cm long. A very small bone for such a very large predatory animal. This is because its reduced size allows the tiger to stride longer and therefore move faster....

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Tigers use their black-striped orange coat as camouflage. Some people might find it hard to imagine the tiger coat as an effective camouflage but bearing in mind the wide range of landscapes in which they hunt it works well . A tiger approaches its prey stealthily and up wind using available cover. It will make a last minute dash to deliver a blow with its massive foreleg. The tiger's dash will be short at about 30 m in order to improve the chance of success as it will struggle to maintain top speed over distances much longer than this. Tiger attack taken from a YouTube video Large animals It knocks the prey down and then grabs the animal with the sharp claws of its four paws. At the same time it clamps its jaws around the prey animal's throat to suffocate it. Sometimes tigers keep its jaws clamped around the throat for longer than necessary and past the moment that the animal has died. It will then drag the carcass to a safe place to eat it. Tigers have enormous strength an...

Dr Desmond Morris, in his book Cat World tells us that the hunting success rate of tigers is about 1 in 20 or 5%. Clearly a poor success rate. He also tells us that a female with cubs has a better success rate because of the urgency to feed her cubs. He puts it at a 1 in 5 chance or 20%. Tiger eating. Photo on Flickr and by Tambako The Jaguar The internet tells me that the success rate is 10% or between 5% and 10% depending on the source. However way you cut it, the success rate is low. This accounts for why tigers are careful eaters leaving little of its prey for scavengers. And they gulp down as much as 30 kg or 66 pounds of meat at a single sitting. When it has finished it may stay with the partly eaten body of its prey until it becomes hungry again and then continue. Alternatively a tiger may cover the carcass with leaves and branches hiding it from predators and scavengers. It can then return for a second meal. The tiger also has to travel long distances to find and kill prey ...