Captive Lion and Tiger weights

[tigerluver]

(03-12-2020, 02:02 AM)Shadow Wrote:

(03-12-2020, 01:36 AM)tigerluver Wrote:

(03-12-2020, 01:33 AM)Shadow Wrote:

(03-12-2020, 01:28 AM)tigerluver Wrote: Thor is the son of Sabre. The website is long gone but Sabre was even larger at 481 kg. Thor also had a similar sized brother, Thunder. All the tigers were quite overweight but Sabre did have a massive frame. There used to be a photo of him where just his body was as long or longer than a couch. Only image I could find was this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Even if Sabre was carrying 300 lbs/136 kg of extra weight, he'd still be massive.

The snapshot of wild cat weights are small and skewed by human pressures. As such, I recommend to not disregard a weight if it doesn't a preformed picture of what is reality. After all, during the existence of modern man true lions and tigers with skulls exceeding 18 inches existed (the Natodomeri lion and Kahayan tiger).

Well, that site doesn´t have even Jaipur right, so it tells quite a lot of reliability of that site and weights. It´s easy to have a 400-500 kg tiger, all it takes is to say so, when owner of some private sanctuary. No wonder, that so many people assume, that 300 kg would be nothing for tigers, when that kind of sites have done "good work".

No clue what site made that, just the photo I found with Sabre. Sabre's weight was mentioned in local new pieces and the original website, but it's been maybe even two decades since.  I cannot find any further record on the other cats but that was not the point of the photo. Here's a link to the SabreFoundation, maybe you get us some clearer info:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Nonprofit-Organization/SABRE-Foundation-Inc-371624322942713/

Newspapers, like many articles of 1000 kg bear, which was then 570 kg, when zoo finally found their records :) Reason why I´m very critical to some claimed weights isn´t it, that I would care so much if some animal is 200, 300 or 400 kg. But after seeing how much unreliable measurements and weights have been shared during the years and accepted easily without too much critical eye, it´s good to point out contradictions and how vague some claims are. And especially when noticing that huge contradiction with real zoos and private sanctuaries, when looking at weights. It´s good to think a moment, that how come that is possible. I just watched a video in which one man told, that his lion is 300 kg.... and I have some doubts that he would have never been weighed. 

In another a man said, that his lion is 660 kg, then a minute later he said 680... even if he mixed up lbs and kg, he still had two different figures one after another. Maybe if someone would have asked again, it would have been already 700. And that lion was fat, so even if this "660 kg lion" was in reality 300 kg which is same as 660 lbs, in "normal condition" it would have been max. 240-250 kg. 

I asked from one sanctuary about one tiger, which they said to be... was it 1000 lbs. They replied that it was, but obese as could be seen from one video clip too. And that he was weighed in some "local scale". I would love to see how some owner of claimed "giant" would arrange weighing with some WAZA or AZA zoo etc. I don´t think that we see such too soon. Guinness also stopped those "fat animal contests" like what comes to Jaipur, it was kind of disgrace to call that kind of tiger as biggest ever or even heaviest ever. Big cats deserve more respect than some freak shows. I wonder how many private owners overfed their tigers in hope to have a heavier tiger than Jaipur and get name in Guinness Book of Records at that time. Sad thing.

What is the average weight of specimens from high quality zoo and average weight of private sanctuary specimens? This would be good data to statistically analyze. Of course, obesity is much more prevalent in private "sanctuaries" but at the same token many zoo specimens do not have the mass of their wild counterparts. The Sauraha male was ~4% shorter than a couple of captive specimens in Christiansen and Adolffsen (2007) but outweighed them by at least 18%. Similarly, the skulls of wild specimens seem denser and heavier, indicating heavier bone stresses and thus muscle mass for the same frame. Thus, it does not seem that zoo animals are representatives of wild form either, nor are obese sanctuary specimens. Reply