Amur Tigers

[GuateGojira]

(10-17-2023, 06:59 PM)Apex Titan Wrote: I find it hilarious that you're the one who's saying that I'm the one who's "crying", "whining", "insulting" and "complaining." Can you read properly? Can you fully understand English words and sentences?

Like I said before, why don't you contact every mod on this forum and ask them who's the one who started the insults, whining and complaining? Huh? Please, go ahead, and we'll see who's the liar.

When did I ever say that you said that tigers from northeast China are not big? What the hell are you on about? As usual, just another lie from you. Go back and carefully read my posts again. You do a marvelous job at twisting my words and making false accusations.

Liar? No Guate, only according to YOU, I repeat....only according to you did I "insult" the Siberian Tiger Project. What insult though? Just because I criticized their harmful capture methods they used to catch tigers. I will happily say it again. The STP biologists used inhumane, harmful, bullshit methods to capture tigers. Thank you once again Guate for confirming that you basically don't give a shit about tigers who get injured and harmed by the Aldrich foot snares.

Let me further expose the Siberian Tiger Projects harmful capture methods: Project "Amur Tiger" or "Plague on both your houses..."

"We have no doubt and consider it proven from the examples given that catching tigers with Aldrich's leg loops, as well as immobilizing them from a helicopter, can and does have a detrimental effect on animals and in some cases leads to death of not only the tigers themselves, but also humans."

http://debri-dv.com/article/5993

Skull of a male tiger that damaged its teeth during capture of WCS:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author


Male tiger Sergei:

"Alas, now visiting - this mighty tiger, in the prime of his life, did not have long to live. On November 7, he again fell into the noose. In the three-plus weeks that had passed since his first capture, the predator was clearly in distress: he was extremely exhausted, and the wound on his paw was inflamed. Didn't lick it."

Tiger Sergei a month before he was injured by the Aldrich foot snare:  You don't mind Guate when big, beautiful, healthy tigers like this get badly effected and injured by the Aldrich foot snares?

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author


A fragment of the broken fang of the tiger Ivan, which tore off the loop during the WCS capture:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author


Injuries received by the tiger Ivan while in the Aldrich loop:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

So as you can see, some tigers were harmed by the Aldrich foot snares which can and does have a detrimental effect on the animal.

So once again, what lie? What insult? I'm speaking FACTS!!  You just can't handle the facts and truth. The STP biologists are not as "perfect" as you think they are.

And once again, because you clearly can't comprehend simple English words. Why did I talk about megalodon? because I was EXPOSING YOUR BLATANT DOUBLE STANDARDS. You agree with and happily accept the findings and statements of scientists and experts when it suits your agenda and views, but any scientist or expert saying anything you don't like to hear, you just arrogantly dismiss them. And yes, you INDIRECTLY, not directly, but indirectly accused the marine scientists, experts and paleontologists of "exaggerating" the megalodon. This is very clear from your posts.

Your the one who's grossly over-exaggerating like a fanboy. The Livyatan Melvillei is nothing but a glorified sperm whale, nothing more. Most, if not all of the worlds top marine scientists, biologists and paleontologists all widely acknowledge the megalodon to be the greatest and most formidable apex predator of all time, the undisputed top predator of the ocean. No one thinks the Livyatan Melvillei was, period. And there's a very good reason for it. And then you have the nerve to say that I'm "exaggerating" the megalodon, when in reality, world renowned marine scientists and experts all agree with my view and disagree with yours, what a joke.

Lets put the megalodon subject aside now, I was just pointing out your double standards, that was my actual point.

Yes, I don't care about your explanations about prey density and population size. But did I disagree with you? NO. Did I ever say that it doesn't have an affect? NO. You, as always, just twist my words or either you can't understand English properly. I just acknowledge that there are other factors, aside from prey density and population size, to consider when it comes to tiger size. Like genes/genetics.

Is it a FACT, not my opinion, but a fact that 'large' and 'very large' male tigers described to be "gigantic", "monster tigers" or "giants" are being seen and traced in the Khabarovsk territories? YES!! According to who? Random forum posters? clueless laymen? NO. But according to highly trained, seasoned and experienced biologists, rangers and specialists who have spent several decades exploring and roaming the remote and vast Ussuri taiga forests.

Who do you expect me to listen to? You, a completely inexperienced, untrained, unqualified armchair "tiger expert" or the real field experts/biologists who have dedicated their entire lives to studying and tracking wild Amur tigers in the Russian taiga?

Its not about "winning the debate", my whole point was that huge male tigers have been documented, seen and traced in the Khabarovsk Krai and northeast China, and none of these giants (apart from two) have been captured or weighed. So based on this fact, I personally think that the true average weight of modern Amur tigers could be higher than what you think it is. But this is just my speculation, but I maybe right. Who knows. And you got all triggered and started crying and insulting me just because I said this and have my own opinion. How pathetic. You're the one acting childish and immature.

You posted real data, information, graphics and images? Really? Where? No one saw it. Where's all your "real data" and evidences of the average weights of Khabarovsk and northeast China tigers? Because thats what I was referring too. Show me? We'd all like to see that.

To end this all, just show me the weight data and evidence of modern adult male Amur tigers that were captured and weighed in various regions, not just the Primorye region?

If you can't, then I'm right. You have ZERO evidence/data on the average weights of modern Amur tigers from the Khabarovsk territories and northeast China.

It is quite clear that your posts are more and more worthless every time, full of hate for me and for the scientists of the Siberian Tiger Project. Definitelly, as I said before, answer to you is a waste of time. 

I have many years participating in several forums, I have my own technical and theorical experience based in all the true tiger experts and I have a reputation that even surpass the internet. I also have a real life where I do also have a reputation in my field (Economy, quality control of operations and customer service methods, and also Religion and Apologetic), I have followers that like to share my information and I am even quoted in prefessional documents, which was a pleasent surprise for me. All my knowledge is thanks to those experts that not only published they documents and books (which I diligently collected and read) but also by they own personal help via personal communications, which I only shared about 10% in the forums, the rest are just personal comments that helped me to clarified points of tiger (and other animals) behaviours. All what I say here is based in FACTS, not "ideas" or "hyphotesis" bases in "feelings" like you do. In fact, I can quote Bernard of Chartres that I am "standing on the shoulders of giants" in this moments and also I will like to add what Isaac Newton said: "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants", which summarize basically all the work that I have done in this and other forums, not only copy-paste information and sharing images from books but also producing data, images and other materials and inspiring other posters to do so. I am deeply gratefull with all those experts that consecrated they lifes to study, learn and protect the most marvelous of the animals, the tiger, and I am 100% agree with Dr Mel Sunquist when he said: "To my admittedly biased eye, tigers are perfect".

So, what you believe and say about me is simply irrelevant, I don't even need to insult you because it will be like a tiger paying atention to a dog, and we know what happen when the tiger did take care of the "dog", specially when the simple canine believe that is an "apex titan". So, for you and your ideas and how violently you react about each of my post, I can only said that sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions to be destroyed (atributed to incorrectly to Nietzsche). This summarize your entire attitud, which is not surprising from a young person (boy or girl, I don't know what are you) with personal issues and fully immature. And by the way, as I said before, I never insulted or atributted anything to the scientist that study Megalodon, all what I said is directly to you, which missquote, twist and interprete incorrectly what they published. Any person that want to see what I believe about this can visit the two topics about the Megalodon in this same forum and check by themselves what I post.

"I'd rather bother with the truth, than indulge in flattery". - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, AD 65

I wanted to start with this phrase, because what I am going to say now is not going to like to many people here, including some moderators and just like the post of Apex were not deleted or edited, I will like that this post will not deleted or edited in any form.

Since this debate started, the entire point of if was the SIZE of the Amur tiger, nothing more and nothing less. Especifically, Apex said that the biggest tiger recorded now came from Khabarovsk Krai and based his arguments in only pictures and a single report of a heel print. I corrected him and said that there is no evidence to claim that, and that even when an expert say that the tigers in an specific are are "gigantic" we need real evidence of that, and unless than that expert visited every single tiger habitat, in every single tiger country and, if possible, measured a tiger by himself, that is only his personal opinions and not valid unless there is a comparative point of view. Also that pictures are irrelevant unless that there is a comparison point. Some people support me (which I am grateful) but others, like Peter do not, which is weird from my point of view. In fact, he showed that he "support" Apex but his reasons, from my point of view, are obscure, specially becasue he and Apex participate (directly and indirectly) in this "tiger vs bear" issue since many years ago, and been honest, Apex in the only one that provided very good evidence about the superiorness of the tigers over the bears in the Russian Far East, which will explain why Peter "protect" him. However, I am old enough to see that it will happen the same that happened with "Shadow", an old poster that became moderator and that at then end just kicked Peter's door and left the forum for "creative differences". In fact, there is a post from Peter where he admonished me, protecting Shadow, and throwing in my face the case of "Waveriders" (other post, a very biased one by the way) when he defended me against him (something that he remind me all the time, and I am very tired of that by the way.....). However, he tried to "manage" this case offering a debate in other section, focusing in the "size" issue, which was great, BUT he touched the point of the aldrich snares, which is weird from my point of view, after all what is the relation between the capture method and the measurements recorded, specially when the figures reported are from only one capture? After all, few Amur tigers were captured more than two/three times. Now Apex not only touch it but quote it in order to support his idea that the scientists of the Siberian Tiger Project used this "inhumane, harmful, bullshit method" to capture tigers in the field, but surpriselly he did not mention anything about the Russian experts that do the same, something that even Sergei Kolchin mention in his article. At the end, IF I am still participating in this forum when finaly happen, I can assure that Apex will do the same to Peter that Shadow do in its moment, my concern is how many good poster may be lost when this finally happen?

The issue about the aldrich snares and its use, something that was shared many years ago already in the forum, that was disscussed, explained and the case was already close, was bring on again by  @peter for unknown reasons, as the debate that he proposed should be focused in "size" and not in the ethic methods used on animals, which is a completelly different topic (an important one of course). Based on Apex, the scientists of the Siberian Tiger Project and by extention any other tiger expert and even me (armchair "tiger expert" as he describe me ) don't care about the health of tigers. Of course, Apex used insults which I am surprised that no moderator scolded him about that language, even when many other posters, which talked to me about they own situations by the way, were banned for much less. However, my point is that Apex is directly and indirectly accusing to ALL the people that worked with tiger capturing them in the field of been negligent with they captures, especifically those of the Siberian Tiger Project, but it surprise me that he say nothing about the Amur Tiger Programme people which also used THE SAME METHODS to capture tigers and that also had issues with the captures. I suspect that he have something hiding in between his words, something obscure and feculent from the bottom of his hearth, and definitelly is not the "love" for tigers. The information on the article (in Russian) is important to take in count and the form that the author describe it is certainly fatalistic. I am concern, however, that since 2013 the article was never published in a scientific document specially by its importance, and also the fact that the aldich snare is still use not only with tigers but with many other animals at 2023. So, this means that the evil scientists do not care about the animals health and conservation, or there is something else, as the same article suggest?

Let me start with a quick review of the history for all the other participants in the forum (Apex no, because he clearly said that he don't care about scientific information) this is the thing, like any human activity there is always a margin of error and a learning curve, that margin needs to be taken in count at any activity or project that is done. In the case of the animals, several errors has been made, some of them very tragic and we learned in the hard way how to work with the different species. This also happened in the field of medicine, just have in mind how many people died because of the first blood transfussion, when the type of blood and its importance was still not known. All knowledge is important, and sometimes at a high price. About the case of the tigers, the first tiger is history was captured Dec 18 of 1973, it as big tigress from Chitwan NP, Nepal, and the process (which was first time used with tigers) was a sucess. Since then, many other tigers had been captured in many wild areas in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Thailand and Russia. Many methods has been used to do the job, most of them are the use of baits in the open, cages with baits and the aldrich snare, and depend mostly of the habitat constrains and behaviour of the animals itselves. What is important to take in count is that all the methods are not perfect and had been detractors all the time, and the scientists had the need to explain cristal clear the methodology and the results of they work, however accidents happen, special situations happen, and yes negligency do also happen, and is important to be ready when this happen. In the case of the tigers in Nepal, from 26 animals captured and the double of captures on these animals, two of them died, the first one female T-108 and the second the famous male T-105 (Sauraha male). The first event was because the animal was in bad shape and very ill (body mass of only 116 kg baited, which means that was c.102 kg empty) and did not survived. The second case was a "freak accident" as the animal was darted and he felt in a pool and died drowned. The last event changed everything as the capture of new animals stoped completelly and scientist only focused in the already captured animals, that at the moment were mostly young specimens in despersal. However, the captured of tigers returned again when the first cases of man-eaters started in Nepal. The method was critizied but at the end, the results of the study talk by themselves and definitelly the death of the speciments (which was tragic, of course) do not means that the method was "evil" and "terrible" and that should not be used again in all the life. For the contrary, it was proved that the captured of wild tigers is possible with a more or less secure method that was less traumatic to the specimens. This was not surprising as the capture of wild animals was already done with pumas, bears and lions long before it started with tigers. So, other countries tried to apply the method. 

When Dr Karanth and Dr Chundawat captured tigers in India using the same method, they got very good results and they studies were of the most usefull for tiger investigation. However, even when they did not suffered any casualty they  were demonized (just like Apex do) by ignorant people that said that they were killing the tigers and were even publically acused of killing them. The studies suffered and the experts were even banned from the parks many times, thankfully for Dr Karanth the ban did not lasted and his efforts to conserve tigers in the Western Ghats region paid and very good, as this is one of the better continuous tiger populations, not only in India, but in the entire world. Sadly, for Dr Chundawat it was the contrary as the same people that accused them say nothing when ALL the tigers in the Panna area were slaghtered by poachers and became a second Sariska. All this is in the books published by them, which are a mandatory for any tiger lover. I have both by the way!

Now, several tigers are still been captured in India, although as the tigers are so used to people the persons that capture them no longer use baits but only dart them in the road. The problem here is that while the experts like Dr Sunquist/Karanth/Chundawat darted and monitored tigers for scientific purposes and showed this in several documents and books, some park rangers in India now darth tigers only to know where they are and to drive people to see them, and there is at least one case when this caused the death of people, we are talkin about tiger "Ustad", the giant male of 258 kg that was labeled as man-eater. However, the bad management of a techniche means that is incorrect to use it? Of course not, as is the bad emploiment, for the bad reasons, what caused the issue. Is like plastic surgery, if is used correctly and to assist people that actually need it is fantastic, but if you use it to change sex just because you "feel" something different, then the entire process is just garbarge. The bait process has been proved as a great technique to capture tigers in the field, with the minimum of losses and provide a lot of good information.

The other method are the cages with baits, which was use in Sundarbans area to capture problematic tigers. Is also a good method and used with jaguars and leopards, but they have more consecuences, with injures in the head of the animal and also broken fangs, even more than in the case of the Aldrich snare. However, do we see experts saying that the method is "inhumane, harmful, bullshit" like Apex states? Of course not, and the methods is still used and they try to care about the animal capture. Just take in count that the animals in these cases are mostly captured for relocation, although they can be also used for scientific studies.

Finally, the Aldrich snare was used in Russia because the other methods were not sucessfull. Tigers do not were lured by baits, they do not entered in cages so they used this method because it worked with pumas and bears in USA, and was successfull. As any other capture process, it cause stress to the captured animal (these are wild animals, they are allways been in strees with this forced contact), but like Dr Linda Kerley said, is better to minimum disturb an animal in order to save an entire species. And in fact, most of the captures were successfull and trough all the documents published, news articles, reports and even videos, there was no issue during the captures of tigers. However, accidents happen and in the cases reported by Sergei Kolchin, tragedy happened. He described the case of 9 captured tigers, from which 4 were directly affected by the snares, there other he suspect also suffered from the capture but that is his interpretation and no circunstancial evidence was presented. However, in the cases that he described the animals suffered from injures in the arms and paws and broken canines. He acused the highest hierarchy of the SBT and even the WCS itself or hidding the situation and to falsificate reports. This type of accusations are very serious and could be even cause legal sitations. However, he only published that document and do not continue insisting in the discontinuation of the use of that method. If we start been paranoic we can say that he was silenced or that was threatened to not continue with this, but those are only weird ideas from the old time of the Cold War. Certainly what I see, if we believe in the evidence that he presents is that something that started like an excelent project and that got very good information, it degenerated in something that at the end affected severily not only the captured individuals, but the entire populations of tigers in the area. Why this method affected so much the tigers but do not the populations of carnivores in USA? That will be a good question to answer in another moment. However, what is insteresting is that this method of aldrich snares is used now to capture tigers in Sumatra and Thailandia, and for the moment no tiger has been reported to be injured, so is possible that the tigers of Amur are more aggresive and thend to fight more agains the snares? Or there is something else? More questions than answer, I am afraid.

Between 2007 - 2008, something similar happened with a tigress in Sundarbans, a news reporter accused the scientists about negligence and that they killed her, an article similar to that of Kolchin was published and the public opinion started a debate. However, this time one scientists did ANSWERED to him and Dr Adam Barlow published in 2008 a document named "Collaring Tigers for Conservation" where he put a very good answer to the paranoic and false accusation of the reporter (I attached the file). 

Now this, as the people from the Siberian Tiger Project never provided a direct answer to Kolchin we may ask, is because they do not wanted? Is because it was true? Or it is becasue they believed it was not relevant? Sadly I do not dare to speculate. But, at the same time, I found not logic that a person that work to save and generate knowledge about an animal will not pay attention to its safetiness. I mean, if you hear how Dr Sunquist, Dr Karanth and others, even Dr Miquelle, how passioned they talk about the tigers and how deep are they working to save them, it is impossible for me to believe that they are happy with see them died for injures caused by them. By the way, why poaching was constantly ignored by Kolchin? In some parts it sound like the old officers of the Project Tiger in India that denied the OBVIOUS depeltion of tigers in the reserves, until the scandal of Sariska and Panna explode it in they faces. And poaching is not diminishing, for the contrary is more powerfull than ever! Now not only lions but also jaguars are been hunted to supply the black marked of tiger products! If we are going to "think bad" about the people of the STP, we also need to see the other side of the coin, why Kolchin published this and also why he do not longer worked with the STP? Was he part of a plan to eliminate "americans" from Russia? If we are going to believe in conspirations, at leats lets be fair in both parts, don't you think? At the end, I see several political issues and fights for power in all this, and at the end the only affected are the tigers and its habitat.

So, here we can see the methods used to capture tigers, none is perfect, but produced acceptable results. Tigers are not just a fundamental animal in the natural order, but also is now a "political animal", so much that people do not disclose even its measurements because in some circles the information about tigers is considered "sensitve information". Everithing related with tiger conservations weight in the political desitions of the countries that still have them, so it is not surprising that many topics about them became controversial. At the end, people like Apex not only do not colaborate in the tiger conservation but attack to the people that actually work for them, that actually risk even they lives to same this magnificen animal. What Apex say, that I "basically don't give a shit about tigers" is not only irresponsable but also ignore all the work that I have done to produce knowledge about the tiger, its status, conservation and also popular topic about its size, evolution and behaviour. Some people may be surprise but is very little what people know about exotic animals, very few actually read scientific books and websites like Wikipedia, which are practially kidnaped by fanatics of some specific animals (specially the version in Spanish) do not contribut to spread the truth about this magnificent animals. Apex certainly feels brave writing behind a monitor but I waranty that his coward attitude will be showed if he actually have the oportunity to talk with the experts directly, Dr Dale Miquelle / Dr John Goodrich / Dr Linda Kerley / Dr Ivan Seryodkin, etc... Why he don't write to them and explain his complain? Of course he will not do it, because is easy to critizice, but is not the same to spend your life actually workign in something that you care. At the same token, this means that I do not believe int he people that work in the Khabarovsk region? OF COURSE NOT. And the difference is that I do not critizice they methods, I do not accused them of been the worst people on Earth or anything like that, the only thing that I said is that create an idea, a myth, based only in personal appreciations and ONE SINGLE HEEL PRINT is NOT SCIENCE and is not valid. But, as any reader of this forum can see, somethimes a single post can degenerate in a completely tragedy.

And here is my conclution about all this, Apex have only one goal, to discard and slander the information gatered by the Siberian Tiger Project, not because he cared about the tigers health but because they showed that the Amur tigers were not the giants reported in the old Russian litterature, simple as it is (even when they did showed that Bengal and Amurs are of the sime size and the biggest cats in modern days). And also because I know that bear fans constantly bring to the debate the average weight of the Amur tigers, Apex want to eliminate that "issue" showing that big tigers kill big bears, which is stupid as smalish male tigers of 160-180 kg are already killing huge bears of over 400 kg, so there is no need to be a big tiger to do the work. Apex don't care about how the people capture tigers, he just want to calumniate to results of the STP in order to delete the size/weights results from the equation of the debates, but insted of searching new information, to contact the experts that are actually working with tigers in the field in these days and get more data, he just stiked to opinions and pictures, which are not valid in a debate. Instead of been smart, Apex choose the wrong way, if not he could know that bigger Amur tigers has been captured at over 220 kg in modern times, but as he believe that what I say is not true, I WILL NOT share that information anymore, simple. Now, the question to the reader is, are you going to believe that the study of the Siberian Tiger Project is fake and that all its conclutions are fabricated, or you going to accept the results and also accept the fact that people are not perfect and that sometimes something that started as a good thing, ended been something completelly different?


Epictetus, the famous Stoic philosopher said that you become what you pay attention to. From many months I have been playing with the idea of leaving the forum, not a retirement, but maybe to create a blog where I can publish my findings or share the knowledge about tigers in a free form. However, time is and certainly will be my worst enemy. However I tried to return to this forum everytime that I can because I like it, I was here since the beggining and only God knows if I will be at its end. However I am not the a young man anymore, and this type of discussions are more and more irrelevant each time. The young people is important if this forum want to continue, but like with a foal, they must be broken in to bring out its best power. People that participate in debates must be prepared for been challenged but there is a point where you are so tired that you prefer to live in peace instead of having the reason all the time, but also some times what to other person present as a "truth" is so stupid that we can't just ignore it, but at the end happen what Epictetus said, we just because in what you are paying attention, don't fight a fool or you'll be reduced to a lower level. So, I hope that what I explained in this post is enoght to express my opinion about this topic and I will not continue this discussion with Apex, it is simple stupid to do it. IF a found it interesting or important, I will continue the debate with Peter, but certainly I have more important thing to do, my own personal projects and the book about tigers that I don't continue since about 10 years! So, if Apex want to say that I hate tigers, or that giant tigers of 4 meters long live in Khabarovsk, or that all scientists are evil and that all the information of the Siberian Tiger Project must be ignored, burned in hell because they "massacred" tigers, I simple don't care, I have saw so many fanatics rise and fall, or run to the putrid caves like "Carnivora.forum" where the trolls and "vrs. lovers" trive. What is important to me is to know that I love tigers, that people know that I love them, that I believe that good people exist and that are working hard all days not just to save tigers but also to make a better world, and that I also know that people make mistakes, but that doesn't mean that the investigations should be ignored. 

So, like I allways say, greetings to all and good luck.

*This image is copyright of its original author

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