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Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers
Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers
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Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers
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 (08-21-2020, 03:39 PM)Dark Jaguar Wrote:(08-16-2020, 05:09 PM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: Batua Sumatran male Tiger 110 kg. 3 more Sumatrans. 110 kg Sumatran male mentioned in a conflict with humans in 2002. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor...le1028045/ Grace Nirang CISARUA, INDONESIA Reuters News Agency PUBLISHED: November 7, 2002 Sumatran tiger faces extinction as habitat shrinks. Peering from a filthy cage, a seven-year-old Sumatran tiger roars angrily as a veterinarian sprays liquid antibiotic on its scratched face. The 110-kilogram tiger was captured in the province of Riau in September after it was believed to have killed five people. It is one of the few remaining Sumatran tigers, whose numbers have declined sharply in the past decade and which conservationists fear may become extinct in the next. "We brought him here after a long negotiation with locals. They wanted to kill it as revenge, but we can't allow another killing of a Sumatran tiger," said Yohanna Trihastuti, a veterinarian from the private Safari Park in Cisarua, 120 kilometres west of Jakarta, In August, angry Riau residents launched a big search for the man-eater. They caught a very young tiger and killed it, although Sumatran tigers are one of the few species protected under Indonesian conservation laws.'' Ms. Trihastuti said the captured tiger will be kept in the park's quarantine centre for two months before being moved to its Sumatran tiger-breeding centre. "We hope in the future he can become a stud for our breeding centre" she said. 3 year old Sumatran male named Inung Rio. 95 kg. https://pekanbaru.tribunnews.com/2019/07...g?page=all  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author March 24, 2019 ''A 3 year old male Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) weighing 95 kg, named "Inung Rio" arrived at the Dharmasraya Sumatran Tiger Rehabilitation Center (PRHSD). This tiger was found by one of the workers at the PT. Gemilang Cipta Nusantara (RAPP Group) in the Riau Ecosystem Restoration (RER) area, lying helpless because of being caught in a trap in Sangar Village, Teluk Meranti District, Pelalawan Riau. Next the Wildlife Rescue Unit (WRU) consisting of BBKSDA Riau and PRHSD headed to the location to evacuate Inung Rio. The team took 22 hours to reach the location, which had to be reached by river by small boat and then continued using land vehicles to get to PRHSD Dharmasraya West Sumatra.'' March 25, 2019 ''Inung Rio was evacuated to PRHSD in Darmasraya, West Sumatra. From March 25, 2019 to April 11, 2019, observation and intensive care were carried out (14 days of quarantine). During the quarantine, Inung Rio was seriously injured in the left front leg, and had a fever with a body temperature of over 400C.  *This image is copyright of its original author Inung Rio's wounds hampered his activities. However, the activity still looks normal and its wild nature is still there. The nature of alertness is still high and immediately emits a warning sound when approached by humans. For appetite (to eat) very good and given pork.''  *This image is copyright of its original author Corina Sumatran female. 85-90 kg. https://indovizka.com/news/detail/1597/h...ama-corina  *This image is copyright of its original author INDOVIZKA.COM - The wild Sumatran tiger, which was injured by a snare and had to be evacuated from industrial plantations in Riau Province, was named Corina because it experienced an incident when the world experienced an outbreak of the corona virus that caused COVID-19. "The current condition tends to improve from its aggressiveness, already willing to eat and drink," he said. He said the PRHSD and BBKSDA medical teams would take the form of healing the wound on the tiger's front leg which was quite severe due to the nylon snare for three days. ''We would like to thank the company because the faster it gets better, the Sumatran tiger can be released in a place suitable for its habitat," he said.  *This image is copyright of its original author She measured 170 cm in body length. Observations on tigers indicate that the protected animal is a female who is estimated to be under 5 years old. The tiger has a body length of 170 centimeters, and weighs 85-90 kilograms. 
Finally had the time today of combining the weights gathered for wild Sumatran tigers from recent years, the table also includes the hunting records posted by GuateGojira and an average for each category, as well as a combined average. Much like the other tables, it will be continuously updated as new weights come forward. I have also included the table from Slaght et al for point of reference:
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Surprisingly the averages for both, the recent weights and Slack et al., match at around 110 kg. Old records present a higher value of 119 kg, and the combined average is close to 113 kg. The range for average weights of Sumatran tigers according to this data is 110 to 119. 
Wild Animals in C. India
A.A. Dunbar Brander  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author The big male said to be 600lbs is significantly larger than the Sauraha Male, just for comparison.  *This image is copyright of its original author
@Pckts, there is some misinformation on the first page. There most certainly is a Sanskrit word for tiger and it is “vyaghra” which ironically is the root word for viagra (yes, the drug gets it’s name from a tiger and most Indians themselves aren’t aware of this fact). The sanskrit word for lion is “simh”.
And, historically, petroglyphs from 30,000 years ago in Bhimbetka (near Panna) most definitely depict tigers (in fact one petroglyph is about tigers hunting humans and not the other way round). There are no petroglyphs depicting lions. There is a lot historical inaccuracy on this topic especially when this book was published.  (08-29-2020, 11:14 PM)Balam Wrote: Finally had the time today of combining the weights gathered for wild Sumatran tigers from recent years, the table also includes the hunting records posted by GuateGojira and an average for each category, as well as a combined average. Much like the other tables, it will be continuously updated as new weights come forward. I have also included the table from Slaght et al for point of reference: On the creation of Averages: In order to get a good idea of the size of an animal, the collection of information including body mass and length/height is important, altough in modern times this has been abandoned for economic/safety reasons, and that is why the information available is few. Now, few people gatter this information, like the table above that is from Barlow et al. (2009) that present one of the last efforts to compile information, but the problem is that the table mix captive and wild specimens and some of them are not even in good shape and that is also important. For example, the captive Amur male tiger of 118 kg was obviously not in good shape, the "male" Caspian tiger of 132 kg was not even a male, and the "P. t. corbetti" tigers are not from Indochina but from Malaysia (there is only two or three weights from captive Indochina tigers on record and are not included in this table). This shows that even some of the "official" tables are not free of errors. The original souce of these figures is the study of Slagth et al. (2005) and is in Russian, however in that table they separated the wild from the captive specimens and that is perfect, although they did not presented ranges, something that Barlow and his team did, so is "half and a half" here. This is the original table, translated with help of Google translator some years ago:  *This image is copyright of its original author Now, why I bring this information again? Well, the fact is that the use of unhealthy specimens cause serious problems when you try to make an average and the best example is the weights of the wild Amur tigers. As you can see, the figure from Slagth et al. (2005) is of 176.4 kg for males (n=18) and 117.9 kg for females (n=13), please take in count that the samples are not the number of animals but the number of captures, some specimens like the male Pt-20 (or M-20 depending of the source) was captured 3 times with weights ranging from 170 to 205 kg. Now, this average includes at least 3 unhealthy males between 125 and 147 kg, and when you include this figures the average reach this very low figure of about 176 kg, however I gattered the original weights from the old Siberian Tiger Project reports, some new ones from the webpage of the project and the new figures of the Amur Tiger Programme, and I excluded these sick males that were not in good conditions and I got an average figure of 190 kg (n=23), this is a more reliable average figure on the population. Check my old table from 2015, I had not changed yet as no new weight has been reported:  *This image is copyright of its original author As you can see, it is important to know what we include in the averages and what we don't, as the inclution of unhealthy specimens cause this problem. Now, about the inclution of specimens of of 3 years old of older, we must remember that most of the samples of tigers include specimens of this age, this because that is the age of the sexual maturity, so while some people is not entirely agree with its inclution, there is not to much that we can do on this. Sadly, must of the old hunting records, even those of Brander, Hewett and Cooch Behar, includes young specimens, and based in the low figures of 150 - 170 kg, they were even younger than that, after all some males in the Indian Subcontinent may reach up to 216 kg at the age of 2.5 years old in some cases! The same happens with females, but that is another story. So, my advice to you is to exclude the specimens that clearly do not show healty specimens, in this case the males of 73 and 74 kg, as not even the captive specimens reach such a low figures. Try to keep a look on this and avoid animals of less than 3 years old and that did not match the ranges stablished. Other example of this is the giant male Sumatran tiger of 185 kg reported by some sources, the figure may be reliable but I did not include it as is bigger than the stablished range for over 20 kg. In this case, we can use those figures as "exceptional" specimens. This is what we get with the Sumatran tiger figures for males:  *This image is copyright of its original author It seems that between 117 - 119 kg is the average weight for the males of this population, and c.118 kg is the closer that we can get. Let's see what new reports can provide us.
@GuateGojira the weights of 74 and 73 are important to register in order to get as much information as possible gathered. To reach a middle ground, however, I will add an asterisk to explain separately in the table that those two may be males in dire or not optimal conditions. Although keep on mind that A2 was quoted as being a healthy individual in the article where the weight was published. I'd be curious to see the weight for the 185 kg male, we may be able to add it as an outlier as well.
(09-02-2020, 02:26 AM)Balam Wrote: @GuateGojira the weights of 74 and 73 are important to register in order to get as much information as possible gathered. To reach a middle ground, however, I will add an asterisk to explain separately in the table that those two may be males in dire or not optimal conditions. Although keep on mind that A2 was quoted as being a healthy individual in the article where the weight was published. I'd be curious to see the weight for the 185 kg male, we may be able to add it as an outlier as well. The inclution of all the specimens possible is not a good way to get a good and accurate average. It is important to get the status of the specimen. In this case, while both specimens are reported as "healthy", none of them state if this was before or after its capture, or before or after its release, and based in the fact that one of the males was heavier after its time in captivity is easy to conclude that the "healty" status was in the moment of its release, not immediatelly during its capture. Other thing is that as I told you before, none of the previuos records, from wild or captive specimens, report such a low figures, so it is obvious that these are outliners in bad shape (Pathio also confirmed that the males captured are normally not in good shape, the same as the giant of 185 kg reported by Sody (1949) and van Balen (1922) which is an exceptional specimen. The thing with the averages is not to grab as much as possible specimens and pull a magic soup, but the gatter the specimens, check its relability and how they will afect the specimens overall. This technique is used by many Biologist in order to avoid issues with the figures, but sadly is also ignored by others. In the tiger and lion cases, we normally use the maximum food intake as the mark to check outsiders, which in both cases is c.35 kg, but as Sumatran tigers are smaller, the mark should be less, like c.20 kg or the 14% of its body size (Schaller estimated up to 25%, but that is probably to much for a normal feed). Even then, this two specimens are still low to that mark (74 against 95) and more imporant, the tiger of 95 kg is a young adult. The same case with the giant of 185 kg, is to much different from the maximum comprobated of 148 kg, so is also excluded. My advise is to avoid to add just figures to the pool. Other thing is that we need to check these figures from the news reports, as many times the figures are not real or as just estimations, believe me we had many issues with this and we are not new in this "business". Weights from news reports or from facebook need to be double checked, as may not be accourate, reliable or even real. If you check the paper of Slaght et al. (2005) you will see a good explanation about this. As I said, this is my advise and you can leave it or take it, but from what we see and the observations of posters like Pathio, I can tell you that 118 kg is a good average for a healty over 3 years old male Sumatran tigers, for Balinese tigers it was probably less and for Javanese tigers it was probably more.
@GuateGojira I do appreciate your insight, I think what's more important is to see all the the data for reference purposes, I personally don't care that much about averages nowadays because they can change dramatically depending on the weights included on the sample. I only use them to see with how much frequency a particular population yields a specific weight and get an idea of what the most common weight for animals of a particular age might be. The range of 110 - 119 kg are provided in the table, so regardless of what average is used, it at least details the spectrum in which most animals will fall in terms of average mass.
For news reports, I'm perfectly fine with fact checking them for accuracy as much as possible and adjusting the table accordingly, if we are able to corroborate that a value is incorrect or reliable.
ALL
The health claim by Bongot was regarding all 5 tigers and it was said when they all were transferred during the translocation from Banda Aceh to Bandar Lampung where the tigers stayed in quarantine for adaptation. Veterinarian Bongot ''The five tigers are between 4-9 years old. When transferred, the five of them were in very good health.'' The 119 kg gain was indeed probably during his quarantine. The 95 kg Inung Rio male is definitely gonna put on more mass to his body for sure, he's only 3 years old. About the accuracy of the news report, it could be changed and corrected for sure in case there's different ones than the ones already presented and lets remember those reports ( one of which was a research about the translocation of the tigers ) have claims of veterinarians and conservationists who were involved in these captures and procedures. (09-02-2020, 06:46 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: About the accuracy of the news report, it could be changed and corrected for sure in case there's different ones than the ones already presented and lets remember those reports ( one of which was a research about the translocation of the tigers ) have claims of veterinarians and conservationists who were involved in these captures and procedures. Experience told me that many times, even news reports with claims of veterinaries are incorrect and that is why we need to double check the reports, experience in more than 17 years in the "business" is speaking here. One webpage from a known international veterinay agency claimed that an Amur tiger radiocollared weighed 250 kg, but when I researched with two experts from the field it results that it was only 185 kg. Other webpage claimed that a Bengal tiger captured for veterinary purposes weighed 280 kg, it resulted that it was not even weighed, just estimated. Several records from the news papers only have ranges of weights, like a Sumatran tigress posted here, which obviously is an estimation in many cases. Other news reports don't even mention the sex of the specimens and only says "tiger". So, there are several lissues when we try to gatter figures, and from my part at least, I allways try to check with the original source or even better, the original scientists that worked in the field. Like I said, the experiance is talking here and many of the old memebers in the forum like @peter for example, can corroborate what I am telling you. (09-02-2020, 10:31 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(09-02-2020, 06:46 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: About the accuracy of the news report, it could be changed and corrected for sure in case there's different ones than the ones already presented and lets remember those reports ( one of which was a research about the translocation of the tigers ) have claims of veterinarians and conservationists who were involved in these captures and procedures. Like I already said, in case there's different and more accurate reports, accounts of the same case it could be changed, corrected in my posts with no problems. until then I'll keep these ones. 
Im finding it really difficult to post on wildfact... by mistake i made a new thread. Im really sorry for that. Anyway can some help me understand how this attached equation works?
 (09-08-2020, 07:11 PM)Scout Wrote: Anyway can some help me understand how this attached equation works? That is a very old formula created by Stewart in 1928. He was a hunter so he only provided his conclutions, do not show what method he used for it or the sample of specimens that he used, which is crutial to check the accuracy of its conclutions. By modern standards that formula is not valid at all, and I suggest you to not waste time in trying to understand it as the results will not be reliable. (09-08-2020, 11:46 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:(09-08-2020, 07:11 PM)Scout Wrote: Anyway can some help me understand how this attached equation works? Okay, thanks Guate |
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