A Discussion on the Reliability of Hunting Records

[GuateGojira]

(11-06-2015, 04:28 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Most scientists will not accept hunting records for the following reasons:
1- Old records with varied methods that could not be verified, and are prone to individual errors.
2- The absence of peer- review or independent verification by a third party , a hunter could exaggerate the size of its trophy and who is there to verify? 
3-When royalty and nobility were members of the hunting party the records , the local ruler/governor/maharaja/chief attempted to please their guests by exaggerating the size of the animals they shot.
So yes scientists will have issues with records of 390. Kg tigers and 384 kg lions..these animals do not exist ..they would not be able to hunt...when the record is almost twice the known size of the animal it is definitely not likely to be true.
Having said that some hunting records are more reliable and can provide a general idea and guide lines when no scientific records exist, the tranqualization and collaring of animals and subsequent measurement taking is not without danger, some animals die of over dosing with the tranquilizer/ hypnotic medication, others of hypothermia or hyperthermia, one tiger even drowned when was semi tranquillized so some governments banned that practice or restricted it ( India ) .
I have seen Ngorongoro crater lions with my own eyes and have seen videos of Assam tigers and both are massive but sadly no records or few records mean that nothing becomes a scientifically accepted fact before it is measured, demonstrated, proven, and reviewed.

In fact, I think that some scientists, not all, don't accept the hunting records because they have that "professional jealous" to they job too. After all, they also have a little pride on they work as it takes time and consume resources.

About the points here, I will focus on the few reliable sources that I quoted, which are Brander, Hewett, Cooch Behar, Hunter and Burton. This doesn't mean that other sources are not reliable, but this ones quoted here is regarded as the highest reliable in the zoologist documents of the first part of the past century.

1. Yes, there are several methods to measure cats, but the reliable sources clearly stated the methods used and even the difference between them. Is very important to state that even among modern scientists, there are variations on they methods to measure cats, some of them following a complete straight line (Sunquist and probably Karanth) and others presing the tape in some points (Miquelle).

2. Yes, some sportmen could exagerate they records, but his is very doubthfull for the sources that I quoted before. Why? Well, they have large samples of specimens and if we read they documents, we can see that they hunt the first tiger that they could get, they did not select specimens and they also included not-fully-grow tigers in they samples, which cause a decrese in the figures. The peer-review process, like @tigerluver stated, is somewhat biased more to the form and not to much to the content. I have saw many mistakes in peer-review documents, so I ask myself, what are these people reading? Please, don't get me wrong, peer-review is the basic process for scientific papers, but it is not 100% free of mistakes.

3. It is a common idea that specimens hunted by the royalty are exagerated per se, because they want to please they guesses. This could be true in many cases, but in the case of the sources quoted by me, they just hunted the first tiger they could get, they don't use baits and finally, they present animals that altough large in some cases, are by no means exceptional (I don't see any 11 ft tiger in any of them records). It is sad that for a few cases of fraudulent measurements, now "all" the records are labeled like that.

Using all the sources quoted above, we get records of weights "not baited" of up to 259 kg (at least two estimated at 272 kg, sadly not weighed) and head-body lengths of up to 221 cm between pegs (total length up to 313 cm between pegs). I guess these are the largest reliable sources and the modern scientific papers show the same weight (two of 272 kg in Nepal actually weighed, estimated at 261 kg with equation "empty") although somewhat shorter (204 cm in head-body in Nagarahole, but up to 311 in total length), but we most remember that measurements of other large males like Madla, ar not known yet.

So, I think that at least those selected sources are very reliable and came from people with great reputation, Dunbar Brander was fellow of the Zoological Society of London, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar is the main source of anatomical data in old litterature and widely quoted (only the Siberian Tiger Project have data like that of him), John Hewett is also regarded as someone of great reputation and reliability and is quoted by modern autorities. Captain W. H. Hunter makes a great account of his figures and explain what methods he used and Reginal Burton is practically an expert in wildlife in Southern India, and present some of the most reliable and accurate figures. There are other few very reliable figures over there (like Campbell or Morris), but at least these ones are classified by me as the "Great Five" of the old tiger records.

Finally, on the extreme figures, I think that the tiger of 320 kg reported by Smythies seems the largest reliably recorded, although certainly it had a serious amount of food; as far I know, most of the Nepal hunts used baits to lure tigers. Sunquist (1981) found that the amount of food that a tiger (male and female) eat in 24 hrs range between 14-19 kg, with one exceptional case of 35 kg reported by McDougal (1977). This suggest a weight as low as 285 kg for the large tiger of Smythies, or between 301-306 kg if it had a normal meal. Specimens like the giant Bachelor of Powalgarh suggest that weights of c.290 kg "empty" could be reachable by particularly giant specimens, these were by no means the norm, but definetly not imposible. Reply