There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
(01-16-2019, 08:14 PM)Wolverine Wrote: The fact that Mr Karanth (and Mr Chundawat) has not witnessed personaly a tiger attacked by dholes doesn't mean that such an events have never happened. Such a statement from his side will be a sign a high self esteem and a basically ridiculous. In order to make general conclusions about tiger-dhole relations we need to collect all information in the last 2 centuries from hunters, local people and scientists. Blaming Kenneth Anderson, a man who spent his entire life in the the Indian jungles Mr Karanth became himself vulnerable for accusations. While highly talented stories of Anderson will be read even after century, frankly speaking Karanth texts are one of the most boring and clumsy scientific texts I have ever try to read.
Zoological survey of India, tiger injured by dholes in Kanha, 1963
*This image is copyright of its original author
Dr Karanth is a lead expert on tigers ecology and conservation and also other predators in India, his credit is much bigger than that of Kenneth Anderson. I support Karanth on this, the same with Dr Chundawat, they actually have seen interations between tigers, leopards and dholes and they have the proofs of that. The fact is that the tiger do dominate this interactions, dholes can harash the tiger but they do not attack them for predation, tigers do and all the interactions reported by them and other naturalits in the wild support they point of view.
Also, other point regarding what the simple observation shows and what the deep study shows: simple observation shows that leopards run away from dholes, but deeper investigation shows that leopards DO HUNT and eat dholes as there are evidence in the scats, this is something that simple observation do not show.
The note of H. Khajuria do not state the age, health state of the tiger or even worst, IF it was a real tiger because they don't saw it, they only hear it. I am NOT saying that local people is not reliable, but some times a good "story" may slip the filters. Even then, the article at the page 449 do not say anything regarding the outcome of the fight, it only says that they happen.
Crazily agreed. I saw you liked my theory on why hunters would have made up those stories. I did actually have a talk with Dr. Kamler, a Canid expert who finds the old stories to be plausible, (obviously I don't agree with him). But he did tell me that Dholes and other wild canids would rather be in large packs so they can effectively defend their territories from other big packs. Saying that he ended up practically giftwrapping a new argument, since that's the case, then they will need all the adult pack members to guard the hunting grounds, and if they attacked a tiger and let's say, a dozen were killed, then the pack would become more vulnerable to being overpowered by a larger pack. So in the end, people like Karanth are correct, there really is no advantage to losing many pack members in combat.