Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur

[Charger01]

(06-26-2021, 06:51 AM)peter Wrote:

(06-25-2021, 07:21 PM)Khan85 Wrote:

(07-20-2019, 09:28 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: Short note: Update on the post of Nepalese tigers.

 

I made an update in my post No. 430. I was thinking about the numbers and I conclude now that in fact there were only 3 adult male tigers captured during the period of 1973 and 1980. This make sense as after the death of M102 in 1976, the large male 105 dominated practically the entire Chitwan NP until his death in 1979 and in that moment he was fighting with male 126 for dominance in the eastern part of the park. So it is obvious that no other dominant male was in the region until the death of Sauraha male. Paradoxically it seems that the dead of this male was the real reason why they stopped collaring new males and stick with the sample of 26 specimens.

 

From the point of view of the fans of “size and weights”, it is bad news that no other animal was captured, but for the scientists and fans of the “behavior of animals”, the Sauraha male was the best thing that could happen, as male 105 bring a period of peace where the behavior of tigers was studied in detail, where many cubs were raised and shows that an stable “kingdom” is the best thing that could happen to recover the tiger populations.

 

Greetings to all. 

I got an interesting reply from Dr. Sunquist regarding this. 

It was a long debate that how many males were captured in Chitwan during the study. This is what Dr. Sunquist told me in respect to this -

Quote:Tigers were sometimes recaptured, but the interval between captures was often a year or more.  I don't know if the weights were added to the list or not.  Perhaps Dr. Smith could shed some light on your question.

What I think of it is that, Dr. Smith might have captured animals after Sunquist left the study in 1974 (im not sure when he left). Even if there were recaptures, Dr. Sunquist doesnt know if the recapture weights were added to the list as different animal. So there might be seven different males, some of which were captured by Dr. Smith during the later part of the study. The only person who I think can clarify this is Dr. Smith, whom I wrote to in February (as Dr. Sunquist suggested) but unfortunately got no reply. 

@tigerluver @peter Please let me know what you make of this

There's plenty of info on the Nepal project. You have to find it in order to get to a timeline. The timeline is needed to get to a conclusion on the number of tigers captured and recaptured. You also have to find out which biologist was when where and in what way the tigers were measured. I know it's a lot of work, but it's the only way to get to good answers. If you don't, you have no option but to rely on conclusions of others. Not ideal, as most of them have an agenda. 

Discussions about the size of wild tigers is serious business. The reason is many of those interested have an agenda. Meaning they doubt everything not to their liking. This is in particular true for tigers of large subspecies (tigris and altaica). Biologists, often indirectly, also are involved in debates about the size of big cats. Goodrich said wild Amur tigers are 'overrated' and Kitchener and Yamaguchi had serious doubts about the weight of the Sauraha tiger. They think he was baited when he was weighed. This means they also doubt information published by their peers. Like I said, it's serious business. 

I've quite a few records I consider reliable of tigers well exceeding the length of the Sauraha tiger. These individuals, shot in northern India and Nepal in the recent past, well exceeded 10 feet in total length measured 'over curves'. One of them, at 10.9, was 705 pounds and my guess is he wasn't the only one exceeding that mark (700 pounds). What I have, strongly suggests tigers in northern India and Nepal could be the largest wild big cats today (referring to averages). 

The Sauraha tiger, although quite large, wasn't exceptional in size. In spite of that, he exceeded a 500-pound scale as a youngish adult and a 600-pound scale in his prime, meaning he was a robust individual. As an adult, he also added just over 3 inches in total length. This, again, confirmes wild male tigers grow for a long time.  

There's, as you know, more info about tigers in northern India and Nepal in the tiger extinction thread, including quite a number of tables based on books written by Hewett and Smythies. I also used information I found in the JBNHS.

Hello Peter


Thanks for the information about the size of these tigers.

However, my doubt was regarding the capture of these animals, precisely how many of them were captured.

I was in total agreement with Guate's conclusions on this, but after this reply from Dr. Sunquist, it raised some questions for me. Because (correct me if im wrong) Dr. Sunquist was the only one consulted to clear this up and he tells that he is not sure about it.

Thank you Reply