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

[WaveRiders]

From Sunquist (1981) pag. 76
 
“RESULTS.—Estimates of the amount of food that can be eaten by a single tiger are shown in Table 27. The average quantity consumed in one day may be too low since most of this information was from animals that were disturbed at bait sites. On two occasions the tiger was known to be eating when we arrived. If the tiger is left undisturbed the average amount eaten in two days is more than double that of the first day, suggesting that the one-day value is low. A hungry tiger probably eats more on the first day of feeding than on successive days.”
 
The darting operation implicated a “disturbed kill” similar to the one caused by the weighing of the carcass on the day following the kill. For sure at least the first day of table 27 fully reflects the average of a disturbed kill (also the other days when occurring, but the average after 2 or more days does not necessarily implicate the kill was also disturbed in any day before in principle, although in my opinion it was more often then not the case because of the purpose of the study on feeding habits).
 
The only likely difference was that the darting and weighing operation occurred during the early/mid morning while the weighing of the carcass to study the food habits may likely have generally occurred later, perhaps late morning or even in the early afternoon. For you that makes a lot of difference. For me no because the tiger had already had the kill at disposition for 10-12 hours or so and because for a night kill tigers ate during the night and normally leaves the kill during the day to come back in the following evening if they know there is more to eat from the carcass. When a predator kill he start to eat immediately regardless how much hungry he is. He always eats, and if he is hungry he eats more. Sometimes baits were not killed, because tigers were not interested to kill it, perhaps because they were not hungry, or because baits were not located by the them. Or because they may have not feel comfortable to do it. It is obvious that if a tiger kills during the day it eats during the day as he starts to eat at least something immediately. This is not the case if the tiger has killed in the late afternoon/early evening/night of the day before.
 
In my opinion day 1 of table 27 reasonable reflects on a statistical basis what you could expect the “unsexed” tiger (actually females contributed much more then males to that figure) had eaten on average before the weighing operation if the tigers were located at a kill like when baited. Then that amount of 14,0 kg is not too far from the stomach contents on average (considering metabolic consumption over 10-12 hours, urination, defecation, blood and water drinking). We could discount something perhaps even 2-4 kg. But then we have the issue of males and females differentiation. Bear in mind that according to Sunquist females contributed much more then males to that figure. He states he substantially studied female tigers feeding habits.
 
So those statistically 10-12 kg or so of likely stomach contents at weighing operations can basically be attributed to the adult female class. Corresponding amount for adult males would be 15-18 kg or so on average on a statistical basis and applying Kleiber’s Law like I suggested to get an estimate.
 
 
                    WaveRiders
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