The Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/...039505.cms

Will Gir lions shifted to Kuno-Palpur sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh come into conflict with tigers that may have strayed from Ranthambore reserve in Rajasthan? For the first time, an NGO, Wildlife Conservation Trust-Rajkot, has joined as a party to the petition filed by the Rajasthan government claiming that there is a possibility of conflict between the two big cats because a natural movement corridor exists between Kuno and Ranthambore. The NGO had filed a petition earlier in the apex court against translocation of lions to Kuno-Palpur.

Citing reports that the male tiger, T-38, from Ramthambore had been found moving between the tiger reserve in Rajasthan and Kuno-Palpur, the petitioner, in an amendment to its petition moved on Monday, has claimed that "the court was never informed about the contiguity which the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve enjoys with Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh."

In its amended petition, the NGO says that Kuno lacks in prey base. Further, given its proximity to Ranthambore, introduction of lions in Kuno could have a severe impact on the population of tigers as lions can travel in search of food to Ramthambore.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory authority under the Centre, seems to support the NGOs' argument. In its report titled, 'State of Tigers, Co-predators and prey in India-2008', the NTCA supports the stand of Gujarat that Kuno-Palpur is a tiger-occupied area close to other tiger habitats including Ranthambhore. Further, as the proposed site for translocation of lions from Gir is close to the tiger areas, tigers keep frequenting the Kuno-Palpur sanctuary.

The NTCA report recommends that the potential habitat connectivity between Ranthambhore, Kuno-Palpur and reserve forests of MP's Sheopur district be improved "to form a viable arid zone westernmost Tiger Conservation Unit in India." The recommendations of the NTCA are legally binding under Section 38-V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act-1972, the NGO has submitted in its amended petition.

Movement of predators

In its order dated April 15, 2013, a division bench of the Supreme Court had dealt with the issue of co-existence of the tiger and lion. The bench had taken note of the fact that Dr. Asad Rehmani, director, Bombay Natural History Society and a member of the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) had pointed out that presence of the tiger in Kuno was in no case detrimental to the re-introduction of lions.

Another member of the standing committee, Dr Divyabhanusinh Chavda, had also emphasized the need to create a second home for lions. However, the court had not taken into account the possibility of reverse movement of lions from Kuno to Ranthambore. Earlier, the Rajkot trust had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the translocation of Gir lions to Kuno-Palpur sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. But it had failed to mention the movement corridor between the two sanctuaries.

Post all Bigcats related News articles and Information.
 

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Sansar Chand, notorious wildlife poacher, dead 

Notorious wildlife poacher Sansar Chand died of cancer at a hospital here on Tuesday, a doctor said. Sansar Chand, who was undergoing trial on charges of killing several tigers in Rajasthan's Sariska Tiger Reserve, was admitted to the Sawai Man Singh Hospital here few days ago, a doctor told IANS.  Resident of New Delhi, he is believed to be India's biggest wildlife criminal who has been responsible for more tiger and leopard deaths than anyone else. Sansar Chand was undergoing trial in connection with poaching of tigers at Sariska in Alwar district, some 150km from Jaipur. It was alleged that he was one of the smugglers responsible for disappearance of all the tigers from Sariska Tiger Resrve in 2005.  "He was lodged in the Alwar Central Jail and was brought to SMS Hospital last week. Tumours were detected in his lungs, brain and spinal cord. The cancer was in the last stage. Before being shifted to SMS, he was undergoing treatment at AIIMS in Delhi. He died while undergoing treatment today (Tuesday)," said the doctor. The district and sessions court in Alwar had rejected his bail application filed by his lawyers on the ground that he was terminally ill and suffering from cancer.  "However, the court had directed the court of additional chief judicial magistrate to hear the case on the daily basis to dispose of the case as soon as possible, since the accused is terminally ill," said his lawyer Ashok Sharma.  Diaries seized from Sansar Chand's family by the Rajasthan Police in 2004 allegedly showed transactions of 40 tiger skins and 400 leopard skins, in a period of just 11 months from October 2003 to September 2004.  During interrogation by the CBI in 2006, Sansar Chand apparently admitted to selling 470 tiger skins and 2,130 leopard skins to just four clients from Nepal and Tibet.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india...253493.cms

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Post different wildlife and nature pictures from all over the world.

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This Snap is taken on the Banks of Ram Ganga River in Grasslands of Dhikala - Corbet NP.






Chitals stags Kabini






Kabini






Male Blackbuck 






Giant Tuskar-Nagarahole






Sloth bear fighting






Sloth bear show Ranthambore NP






Monkey Romance




 

Post pictures, videos, accounts and news articles on Tiger Predation.

 

 

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T42 from Ranthambore stands over a cattle kill.



 

 

This thread is to discuss about making career in wildlife photography and film making.

How to open a production house?
How to enter in this field and where should go to start the things?
What are the expenses and how much time it generally takes?
What to study and from where?

Advice from persons who are already in this field and have a successful career are most welcomed.

 

Negrito's and large python, Philippines. Snakes of this size were known to take Negrito Indians (children most of the time) at times.
 

 

Please share your info on amur tigers.

One man (former employee of Zoo Prague) told me that there are basically two kinds of amur tigers. First - "real" amurs - are not exceptionally tall, but long and robust. Second - so called "Leipzig line" - are tall, but not so robust and not so heavy.

Do you have any info on this?


 

Jaguars











Leopards











Cougars











 

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More Jaguars






Some big leopards

This topic was made by Guate at animalbattles board sometime ago. This is direct copy excluding the unimportant parts.

0 - Was the Barbary lion, the famous population in the north of Africa, a truly giant? Are those claims true? The next topic show that the Barbary lion was of the same size than they brothers of India and West Africa. None reliable weight has been reported from this population, but the few sizes and skull dimensions show that they are not exceptional in any particular characteristic.







1. Charles Guggisberg


It has been long debated which was the size of the Barbary lion. At this moment, the best source is the book “Simba, the life of the lion” of Charles Guggisberg (1961), check the image:




As we can see, the sizes reported are no larger than modern lions from East Africa, or a better comparison, of the same size than those from West Africa and India.



Some weeks ago, I buy the book “Wild Cats of the World”, also of Guggisberg (1975) and he put the same data about the Barbary lion that he puts in his previous book. Check the image:




So, I search the original source of the data which is this book:

* Brehm, A. E. 1925. Tierleben. Vol. 4. Leipzig.



After a few searches, I found it in the web here:

https://archive.org/details/brehmstierlebena12breh



The reference is different (year 1915, Vol. 12), but the data is exactly the same.

Now, check the measurements that Brehm states:





Brehm was probably one of the best Zoologists from Germany and the entire world. His data most be taken as mandatory and his statements are highly reliable, although now somewhat outdated.



Brehm states that the adult Barbary lions have a shoulder height of 80-100 cm, a head-body length of 160-190 cm and a tail length of 75-90 cm, which produce a total length of 235-280 cm. This size is similar to all the other lion populations and don’t present any exceptional dimension.

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2. Nobuyuki Yamaguchi



Yamaguchi & Haddane (2002) made a good investigation about this lion, check it:



“How big was a Barbary lion? The famous French zoologist Cuvier measured a six-year-old captive-reared male Barbary lion, which had head and body length of 5 pieds 2 pouces (= c. 1.58 m), tail length c. 66.1 cm, height of forequarters c. 83.6 cm and of hindquarters c. 83.6 cm (Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier, 1824). This lion was caught in eastern Algeria in 1795 at about one year old and died at ten years old in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. Although the live lion may not have given Cuvier accurate measurements, the animal seems to have been very small for a male lion. It is, however, doubtful whether captive Barbary lions, usually captured as cubs and kept in menageries during the 18th or 19th centuries, attained the full body size. Cuvier himself referred to undesirable captive conditions at the menagerie (Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier, 1824). Cornish (1899) reported that big cats only lived, on an average, for two years in London Zoo in the mid-1800s. Gérard (1856) also expressed his concern about the captive condition of lions at the Jardin des Plantes. On the other hand, he described a big wild Barbary lion he shot with the comment `This lion, compared to the finest of those which are exhibited in our menageries, or at the Jardin des Plantes, was what a horse is to a donkey. . .' There is, however, no credible record of body measurements of wild Barbary lions. Gérard (1856) described the size of wild male Barbary lions as c. 2.3 m from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail, which measured c. 90 cm, and their weight as c. 270–300 kg. If this had been true, Barbary lions would indeed have been big amongst lions. However, the methods of obtaining these measurements (e.g. straight or along the curve) were not specified, and the accuracy of the measurements themselves may be questionable, as Gérard made them in the field. Although Pease (1899, 1915) suggested that North African lions might have become very heavy because they fed on mutton so much, regarding the body length he seems not to have believed what he himself quoted – an Algerian lion whose head and body length was c. 2.5 m and the tail length 75 cm.”



“The largest Barbary lion skull so far measured, which is partly broken, has an estimated greatest length of c. 360 mm (Mazák, 1970; Yamaguchi, unpublished). Although 360 mm is not small, big skulls of sub-Saharan lions easily reach a maximum length of over 380 mm, and some even over 400 mm (Hemmer, 1974; Best, 1981; Yamaguchi, unpublished). Does this mean Barbary lions were not particularly big? Due to such a small sample size, we have to wait until more specimens may become available. The big lion Gérard shot in Algeria was presented to the Duchess of Orléans (Gérard, 1856), but the current whereabouts of this specimen and other wild-shot Barbary lions which decorated Gérard's Paris residence are not known.”

Source: http://www.izn.org.uk/Archive/321/Izn-321.htm#lion



Conclusion of Yamaguchi: there are no reliable sizes of wild Barbary lions, nor any weights. Yamaguchi, the “god” of hard-core-lion-fans presents a good case where he states that there is no evidence or at least enough specimens to say that this lion was larger than any other population. In fact, if we follow the new genetic evidence and with the presented sizes, we can conclude that this lion was of the same size and weight than modern Indian and West African lions, which incredible, reach the same sizes despite the large geographical distance.

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3. Skull size

About the skulls, Yamaguchi & Haddane (2002), quoting Mazák, states that the largest skull from this population was of c.360 mm, which is smaller than the maximum of other lion populations (South Africa, up to 419 mm according with Hemmer (1974)). However, a new investigation of J. H. Mazák (2010) provides new figures, check the image:






This table presents the following average for the population in the north of Africa:

Greatest skull length:

* North Africa:

Males – 372.3 mm (n=3)

Females – 318.3 mm (n=2)



The second sample from North East Africa (specifically Ethiopia, including those from Addis Ababa) is dubious on its classification, because some authors believe that they are from descendents of the Barbary lion, but the last genetic study show that they are closer to the East African lions (Dubach et al., 2013), so its inclusion here will be incorrect.



Although small (n=3), the sample of Barbary lions show specimens that are clearly larger than the record stated by Yamaguchi, with a probable maximum between 410-420 mm. Even then, there are several records of lions with large skulls and small bodies, so this large skull size only suggest that Barbary lions were as large as other populations, but that they were no exceptional in any case.



Here are some images of a Barbary lion skull found in the tower of London:











Sadly, there are not measurements available, but they seem to be very small.



The average for the Indian lions is of 338.9 mm (n=6) according with Mazák (2010) and of 344.0 mm using 4 specimens from Pocock (1939) and Prater (1921). The largest Indian lion skull available measured 365.8 mm (Prater, 1921). Mazák (2010) presents only one skull of 330 mm from Iran and one of 347.8 mm from West Africa. Obviously these samples are pretty small, but even then, it seems that the Barbary lions had larger skulls than those from Asia and West Africa. Could this mean that the largest specimens of the Barbary lions were larger than those from these regions? Probably they did, but we don’t know by how much. A study of the relation between skull length and body length of lions could help us with this problem.


4. Conclusion



Using the little reliable information available, the Barbary lion (female and male) had a head-body length of 160-190 cm, a shoulder height of 80-100 cm and a greatest skull length with an average of 372.3 mm in males and 318.3 mm in females. These sizes are about the same than those of Indian and West Africa, with the exception of the relative larger skulls.



With the weight issue, judging by its body size and skull dimensions, Barbary lions probably weighed up to 200 kg (and much less in average, probably between 160-170 kg) although there is the possibility of some exceptional specimens of probably up to 230 kg like the East African lions, or even 250 kg like the Southern African lions, but this last figure will be probably just an exaggeration in the northern areas of Africa. There is only a single report of Gérard of males up to 270-300 kg, but these are simple estimations and are completely unreliable.



The idea of its large size came from the large mane, but there are several captive Indian lions with heavy manes that weight less than 160 kg. There are several large lions with heavy manes in private facilities available in the web and the hard-core-lion-fans proclaim without any evidence that they are “Barbary”, but the truth is that none of them is pure Barbary or from any other population. Besides, any captive lion in cold climate can develop a large mane, so the mane is the worst factor to detect a Barbary lion.

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Barnett et al. (2009) confirms that Barbary lions and those from India are the about the same, genetically speaking.

Here is the image of the evolutionary tree of the three different taxas of “lions”, plus a little ad:







Interesting, the DNA analysis showed that Barbary and Indian lions are about the same, even more closely related than some Cave lion population between them (intra-specifically).



This supports even more, the theory of Thapar et al. (2013), that lions from India were originated from Africa, and that the particular population of Gir probably came from the lions exported by the Mughals and Alexander the great, which take them from North Africa and Persia.