Book Review

[Dr Panthera]

Book Review: Tigers  Michael W.Richards and Hashim Tyabji
This book accompanied the BBC Series Tiger-Spy in the jungle, it was filmed in Pench national park in India by Richards, Indian naturalist Tyabji provides the information on tiger ecology to go with the awesome photographs taken by Richards.
Some interesting points in this book:
* The untrained eye will mistake sub-adult tigers for adults, a two year old male "looked" adult to the photography staff before the mahouts and biologist pointed out his age. This is a common error and there are many hunting reports that include/mistake sub-adult tigers and lions for adults, a two year old tiger/lion is a massive animal but by no means full grown nor sexually mature.
* An encounter between a tigress and a large python (no injuries to either)
* An encounter between a tigress and a leopard, the tigress treed the leopard and attempted to climb the tree after it, unsuccessfully of course.
* The inclusion of elephants as potential killers of tiger cubs ( no other documentation of such threat)
*Interactions with sloth bear: 2 sub-adult male tigers attempted an attack on an adult male sloth bear to end up being chased by the angry bear, in another incident, Charger, an adult male tiger killed and ate an adult sloth bear ( sex undefined)
* The mortality rate of Pench tigers 60-70% from birth until establishing a territory ( high infanticide rates?)
* Mentions undescribed hunting records of 327 kg male in northern India and a 363 kg of an Amur male 
* Longevity maximums of 16 years for females and 12-13 years for males
* A tiger can eat up to 35 kg at a time ( no details given)
* A record of a tigress killing two chital stags within minutes of each other
The bouldercam, logcam, and elephant-held cameras took great pictures of the tigers and other animals that complemented the excellent text. Reply