The Tiger

A rare Malay tiger was shot dead at a zoo in Florida after a cleaner employed by a contracting cleaning company put his arm through the fencing. He was in an unauthorised area. It's reported that his behaviour was in breach of contract and reckless. Sadly, it is the tiger who paid with his life despite behaving instinctively. Eko, the Malayan tiger shot dead by a sheriff's deputy because he would not release the hand of a cleaner. The photograph comes from the zoo's Facebook page. The cleaning company was responsible for cleaning restrooms and the gift shop. They were not responsible for cleaning animal enclosures. Enquiries indicate that the man was either petting or feeding the animal. Reports indicate that the tiger grabbed the man's arm after he traversed an initial barrier and put his arm through the fencing. The tiger concerned was a four-year-old Malayan tiger whose name was Eko. A sheriff's deputy arrived. He kicked the fence to try and startle the tiger int...

The video and still photograph from the video show an Amur tigress (Siberian tigress) walking through deep snow in the Far East of Russia. She has become a mother for the third time. The video was captured by a camera trap. Below the video is the text accompanying the video in English translated from the Russian. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Центр «Амурский тигр» (@amurtigercenter) Note : This is a video from another website which is embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it. These words accompany the above video on Instagram:  Tigress Svetlaya became a mother for the third time. Having shown two 4-5 months old tiger cubs to a trail camera, Svetlaya, one of the "founding mothers" of the tiger population in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast made a New Year present to specialists of the Amur Tiger Center, the Tiger Center and the Hun...

This is one of those extraordinary pictures of a huge predator, a tigress, not killing and eating a prey animal that is right next to her. But rather than kill and eat this fawn the tigress appears to be relating to the young animal as one of her offspring.  Tigress carries a fawn in her mouth as if she is carrying her own cub. Photo: Instagram. Perhaps she is pregnant (see looks it) and those mothering emotions are coming out and dominating the emotion to attack, kill and eat. And sometimes tigers are curious so they don't always (albeit very rarely) kill and eat prey animals.  We have seen it before in fact with large predators, particularly big cats. I've seen a leopard playing with a young antelope, for example.  I guess sometimes these encounters start like this but lead to the death of the prey animal because the instincts of the tiger are somewhat jumbled up and at the end of the day the dominant instinct is to kill.  Notwithstanding that I am reassured tha...

We have some information about how tigers died in Maharashtra, India from January to July 2021. The Chief Minister of that Indian state, Uddhav Thackeray, was answering a question about tiger deaths in the first six months of this year. He stated that 86 tigers had died across the country in the first six months of the year and 23 tigers had died in Maharashtra for a variety of reasons according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NCTA). Bengal tiger. Image in public domain. The causes of the deaths, I think, are quite revealing. Natural causes accounted for 15 tiger deaths. One tiger was killed in a railway accident. Four tigers were poisoned and one died of electrocution. That makes 21 deaths and therefore the remaining three were due to poaching to the best of my knowledge. 15 of the 23 tigers were adults and eight were cubs. He said that the government of the state had taken the required steps to prevent electrocution, poisoning and poaching in accordance with the NCTA...

This is a little-known tiger subspecies which I've recently written about. I focused on the extinction of this tiger . Back in the day, at the beginning of the 20th century, tigers were considered to be pests and nuisances. Bloodthirsty Europeans who were well-healed made their way to Asia to take pot shots at tigers including those on the island of Bali.  Bali tiger. It is said that they tied baits like goats to posts and under or around the goat they placed a leg trap. The tiger approached the goat and was trapped in the jaws of this clamp whereupon the great White Hunter shot the tiger at point blank range. They then went home and tell their wives and children what wonderful hunters they were. It is all very sad. In addition to being hunted to extinction probably before the 1950s, the Bali tiger was also pushed off their own land by human population growth and expanding human activities including plantations which destroyed their habitat. And humans have an insatiable appetite f...

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...

It is reported that Joe Exotic 58, is going to be released early from his 22-year prison sentence for conspiring to murder Carole Baskin. The Sun tell us that his sentence is due to be changed. They say he will soon walk free from prison. And on that basis, he has big plans.  Joe Exotic and tiger. Pic in public domain. He wants a new boyfriend and to meet that requirement he is preparing to star in his own dating show. The TV companies will be lining up to hire him. He also has plans to start up his own cannabis production line. The dating show will be called "Bachelor King" after the label that the media has given him which is "Tiger King" because he peddled in captive tigers and abused them. It is funny how people forget how he exploited and abused tiger cubs. He was one of the big four exploiters of tigers in America for many years. He was cruel to tigers . At one time he had the largest private zoo in America with the greatest number of big cats. You may reme...