ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[peter]

(06-12-2015, 09:57 AM)'Brehmji' Wrote: Great post Peter! Logical conclusions and a nice summary.

About your questions:

~a - Why is it wolves were seen in large packs in a region known for tigers (the eastern part of the Sichote-Alin Mountain Range) about a century ago by Velter and his companions? I mean, they caught 26 in a wolf trap in 6 weeks only.

One possible reason could be a more balanced ecosystem, with less human interference in those days. From what i've understood after your description, it looks like that the russian far east is a fragile environment for wolves, due to the reasons you listed. They face harsher conditions than their relatives from north america, which mostly live in a similiar environment, BUT, and there is a big but, they don't have to face tigers AND bears at the same time. There is also less prey variety in the amur region, so there is direct competition over the same prey especially with tigers. If hunter's also come into play and wolves are their prefered competitors to eliminate, they are the one's who will suffer the most from human and natural impact.


~b - Why is it timber wolves in the Russian Far East, known because of their large size, seem unwilling or unable to take on tigers if we also know they do not hesitate to harass and attack brown bears, who can grow to a larger size than tigers?  

After watching several documentaries, where wolf - bear interaction is showed, i think it could be wolves fighting style against larger predators. Against bears, they usually seem to harass them one by one from different angles. Even if they could overpower the bear (if numerous enough) if they would decide to charge from all angles, they don't want to take risks by losing members. In the documentary "viking wilderness", this tactic worked out, the bears were to slow and unable to catch a single wolf in the long run and cancelled the fight. The bear's weren't in real danger after all, but they quit and l

Against a tiger, this tactic won't pay possibly. Usually faster and more agile than a bear, a tiger could take out 1 or 2 wolves quickly, and if that should be the Alpha male or female...everyone can imagine.

My thought's, does it sounds plausible?
 

Agreed on both points. In a balanced ecosystem, wolves, judging from the old books I read, would probably do ok. But when things change and the house of cards collapses, they would be the first to suffer for the reasons mentioned.

I also think a tiger threatened by wolves could quickly overtake and eliminate one. Judging from what I read about turf wars in North-America, chances are the alpha male or female would be one of the victims.

Dholes, smaller and faster than wolves, have co-existed with tigers for many thousands of years. Today, they avoid them, but I take the reports about large packs harassing and attacking tigers in central and southern India serious. Half a century ago, dholes attacked and killed hyenas and sloth bears. Incidents were witnessed by K. Anderson. If true, and Anderson said it was, dholes wouldn't have hesitated to attack leopards and tigers. Leopards were able to escape by climbing trees, but tigers were not. Anderson knew of three incidents in which tigers were killed.  

Biologists think predators wouldn't be prepared to risk limb and life, but tigers do it in Russia when they attack adult bears and my guess is dholes facing tough conditions in certain parts of the year would have been prepared to engage larger competitors at times as well. Once the experience is there, chances are they could repeat it. When the experience is lost, dholes avoid big cats. Wolves have no experience in this respect and it could be Amur tigers, always interested in canines, are different from their Indian relatives in this respect.

This was first posted by 'Mighty Kharza' on the Carnivora forum:

*This image is copyright of its original author

     

Indian wolf and tiger:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply