The Sundarban Tiger

[GuateGojira]

(12-24-2015, 01:31 AM)Dr Panther Wrote: I wouldn't say "on the edge", their habitat is safe from massive human intrusion which remains the biggest threat to any animal on earth, the Sunderban can be a safe haven for tigers and their long term survival and recovery are possible.
On the other hand their numbers are not as high as the outdated pugmark census indicates ( 300 in India and 600 in Bangladesh) their actual numbers can be lower than 100 in India and lower than 200 in Bangladesh, doubling these numbers is possible.
The males from Mukherjee and Mallick appeared to be in good health, the females from Adam Barlow's study were in poor health yet his examination of skulls of Sunderban tigers suggest they are likely to be smaller than Sumatran tigers, more data is needed

This time, I am not entirely agree.

Despite human intervention, tigers have adapted (barely) to that massive human intrusion in some focused areas, check those huge peregrines in the National Parks, tigers learned to avoid (and fear) people. But in Sundarbans is not the case, here tigers not avoid people, they hunt them. Of course, less people is better for tigers and any other animal, but in the mangroves, humans do make intrusions and the results are bad. i guess that the main problem is the prey, check that as far I know, there is not a real figure about how much prey is available, and the animals are mostly small and in little numbers. The largest species is the Chital deer with a maximum of 50 kg in this region and besides, the habitat itself is shrinking as the sea is gaining terrain every year caused by the global warming; the tide erase the boundaries of the territories and possible some conflict may exist between the specimens. So, the always present human intervention, the low prey size and numbers, and the climate changes that affect and change the habitat, affect this population in an unique form. Tigers in other areas of India have similar problems, but not like here. A similar scenario is that of Indochina, where the species is almost "functionally extinct" from all the countries except Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia.

The numbers of tigers in this area has been controversial. Government census put ridiculously high figures while scientists like Dr Karanth found that the population there is lower than 100 in India, like you mention. Sadly, there is not a true large-scaled scientific census in the entire area, just estimations.

On the size, old records are too few to get an idea of the past, but modern records shows a true decline in size. Most of us had stated that the decline in size is caused by all the problems described above (the media follow this line too), but we most take in count that with lack of data from the past, we don't know if that reduction was in fact so dramatic or if this has been the tendency all the time.

The specimens from Mukherjee and Mallick were, sadly, not in good health state, as some were found wondering and emaciated. He describe it very well, and it is sad, as all the specimens captured in this region have this same problem. The only specimen described as in good health is the female of 80 kg captured by Dr Barlow, she had 12-13 years old in that moment. However, ignoring the weight, the body size is in fact smaller than the mainland tigers and similar to the Sunda subspecies. Reply