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07-17-2019, 07:57 AM( This post was last modified: 07-29-2019, 07:01 PM by GuateGojira )
Tigers of Chitwan NP – Specimens captured by scientists:
Since many years there has been a controversy about how many tiger were actually capture in Chitwan NP in Nepal, by the scientific team of the of the Smithsonian Institute and Nepalese Biologists. Most of us had defended that the numbers in the list of specimens and weights are in fact the number of animals captures, but a few had debated this.
Recently, like I said many times, the book of Dr Chundawat inspired me to challenge my preconceptions, and I still use the Vulcan proverb: “challenge your preconceptions or they will challenge you”. So, if I challenged the preconceptions of many people here about Sankhala, why I will not challenge MY own preconception about the tigers from Chitwan?
Introduction:
I decided to start from the very beginning, like if I knew nothing about this sample and study, and I decided to read all the available documents about the tigers from Chitwan. At the end these are the sources that I use to make the following study:
Primary sources:
1. Sunquist, 1981. The Social Organization of Tigers (Panthera tigris) in Royal Chitawan National Park, Nepal.
2. Fiona and Mel Sunquist, 1988. Tiger Moon.
3. Seindensticker, 1996. Tigers.
4. Smith et al. 1987. Female Land Tenure System in Tigers (In “Tigers of the World, 1st. edition).
5. Smith, 1993. The Role of Dispersal in Structuring the Chitwan Tiger Population.
6. Seidensticker, 1988. Life of a Tigress.
7. Smith et al, 1983. A technique for capturing and immobilizing tigers.
Secondary sources:
1. McDougal, 1977. The Face of the tiger.
2. Mishra, 2010. Bones of the tiger.
3. Mills, 2004. Tiger.
4. Smith et al. 1999. Metapopulation structure of Tigers in Nepal (In “Riding the Tiger”).
6. Dinerstein, 2005. Tigerland and Other Unintended Destinations.
7. Dinerstein, 2004. The return of the Unicorns.
If someone wants to ask if I read all this documents to get to my conclusion, the answer is yes. So if any reader have a doubt about any part of my post, can request a scan and I will try to share as fast as I can.
Through all this literature I manage to found all the specimens captured in the study. It was satisfactory, but at the same time intimidating, to get a conclusion that for many times challenged all the posters of this and other forums. The conclusions are incredible and believe it, if I will not have focused in the specific details, I will not have found the evidence that I needed to present this study. So, here we go…
The sample and the animals:
Using the main documents that I presented, I found that the study started in 1973 with the first capture of the tigress 101, the first one ever radiocollared tiger in the world. After that several tigers were captured from 1973 to 1980, but it was until 1982 that the capture of new specimens finally stopped.
Here are the statistics:
1. 26 tigers were radiocollared, and 49 captures were made.
2. From these animals, 15 were males and 11 were females.
3. Also from these 26 specimens, 12 were adults and 14 subadults/cubs.
4. From the subadults, 4 were females and 10 were males.
5. 2 subadult male tigers were not included in the sample of the 10 male subadults studied from 1977 to 1987 (take this in count).
6. The 14 subadults from the sample born about 1977-78, the total of cubs was of 19 but only 13 were radiocollared and Smith (1993) included the data of tigress 103 captures by Sunquist (1981). They born from 6 of the original 7 females captured as adults.
So, by simple mathematics, we can see that:
15 males: 10 subadults + 2 subadult not included in the original sample.
3 adults
11 females: 4 subadults
7 adults
This will be the simple conclusion, now let’s not forget that the document says that 15 of those animals were re-captured 1-4 times. So let’s see this:
* Cubs 7 specimens – 1 was surely female (103).
* Subadult females 4 - 4 captures (0 recaptures)
* Adult females 7 - 19 captures (12 recaptures)
* Subadult males 12 - 12 captures (0 recaptures)
* Adult males 3 - 7 captures (4 recaptures)
**Total 26 - 42 + 7 cubs = 49 captures.
In the sample I did not included cubs as they were captured as cubs and also as subadults, so they count as recaptures. There were 16 recaptures in total following this logic.
Now, there is a big possibility that in fact there were only 3 males in the sample, if we believe that Sauraha male (105) was captured 4 times, and I will discuss that latter.
List of specimens:
Ok, here is the list of the specimens captured by the Smithsonian/Nepal project (updated at 29/07/2019):
*This image is copyright of its original author
This table is a summary of the information that I got from all the 26 tigers captures by the Smithsonian/Nepalese project. Everything in blue is speculative, based in the fact that while is obvious that all were captured as "subadults" at least once, probably those that managed to be "residents" were captured as adults and certainly 6 of them were captured as cubs previously, so taking in count the 22 known captures, counting that all the other animals since 110 were captured at least once, that the captures in "blue" color were correct (as adult or as cubs) and adding the 6 cubs (probably only 4 as two of them were probably already added in the "blue" captures), we got the 49 captures (some of the "blue" captures could be actually cubs, so the number will lowered to only 4 and then my calculation match). While the study continues until 1987, they did not captured new tigers but only recaptured the same available sample. Now let’s go to the analysis.
Remember that we know that, from the real sample, we got the number of 7 for the original adult females and 3 original adult males. Based in the table, this is what I have:
FEMALES:
Original adult females:
101, 106, 107, 108, 109, 113 and 115 = 7
New adult females:
103, 111, 118 and 122 = 4
Total of females: 11.
In base of this we can conclude that the last 4 were weighed as subadults and probably also at adults. As far as we know, only 103 were weighed as a cub, but the some of the other 3 females could also be weighed in that age.
1. In table 1 of Smith (1993) we can see that the male 125 was not in the sample of study of the 10 subadults.
Also the male 104 was just captured once in 1974 and after 1977 (when Dr Sunquist study ended), there is no information about male 104, in any document available for me.
2. From these males, only four (116, 117, 121 and 123) survived to because “residents”, but that was after the death of the Sauraha male tiger in 1979, so probably they adult weights, if were recorded, are not included in the sample of Smith et al. (1983).
3. About the captures of male 105. We know that was captured 3 times, but also we can speculate that the male was captured 4 times, but this is also the case of 103. Now, the most likely scenario is that Sauraha was captured 4 times, even when we don’t have evidence of any other capture between 1973 – 1980, as make no sense that there is no other capture between 1975 and 1979. So if we already know that 12 of the 15 males were subadults, by logic the other adults should be 3. Also as 103 was still alive after the death of 105, this is based in the fact that 123 or 126 killed on of her cubs (105 was not anymore there to protect them), it is also likely that the tigress was captured more times for the importance of the study.
But, could be a 4th male? Although there is information of other large males in the area, like the “Amaltari” male or “Bange Bhale”, to give a few examples, none of them were weighed before 1980 and some were not even weighed at all. From the subadults that became resident only the male 123 is the best candidate as it was the older of the males at 27 months old and did manage to get a territory, at about 3 years of more he fought with 126 but eventually was killed in the fight. At 3 years old scientists already classify tigers as “adults”, so this is a good candidate for been the 4th male, but I am speculating.
Other candidate is male 104. However although this male was certainly an adult by 1980, there is no evidence of him in any of the documents that I read after 1977. McDougal (1977) in fact mentions that the Smithonian/Nepalese project lost his track after he dispersed. So although it is a possibility, is more likely that there was not a 4th adult male in the sample of “7” from Smith et al. (1983), based on the few evidence available.
Other tigers:
Apart from these 26 specimens, I could not found any other tiger captured except for “Banga Bhale”, a male that was territorial from 1982 – 1984 but latter was defeated by other male “Lucky Bhale” and became man-eater. This male weighed about 450 lb (204 kg) and is reported by Mishra (2010). The other male is the famous 126 captured again in 1984 by Dinerstein (2003) and that weighed over 272 kg. However Dinerstein (2005) also mention other male of over 560 lb (254 kg) captured in the area of “Baghmara”. So, who is this male?
I checked the maps and there are two points:
1. There is not just one “Baghmara” in the park, check this map:
*This image is copyright of its original author
In fact there is a Baghmara in the west (also shown in the figure 6, page 48, of the book Face of the Tiger of Dr McDougal) and also a Baghmara in the east, near to Sauraha.
2. Now, we know that Dr Dinerstein was in Nepal at about 1975-1978 but it was in the west region, studying the reagion near the river Karnali and the tiger population in Bardia, not in Chitwan; also an investigation of all the territorial males studied and radiocollared, just two males inhabited in the region of Baghmara west in those years: male 102 and later 105. So by extension, we could imply that that male was probably 105, but the problem, as I said before, is that Dr Dinerstein was not in that part of Nepal in that moment, so is not 105.
3. In fact Dr Dinertein arrived to Chitwan in 1984 and is possible that the Baghamara that he mentions is the one of the east. Based on the figure 7 of Smith (1993), the territory of male 121 was exactly in that area, near the Sauraha region and as we know that the territory of male 126 was adjacent to that of 121, in the west side, we can conclude that the big male that Dr Dinerstein is talking is no other than male 126.
4. Now, why the difference in weight, from 270+ kg in the book of 2003 and now of 254+ kg in the book of 2005. Dr Dinerstein confirmed the weight of 126 as "over 272 kg" through an email to Tigerlover, but if we look closer and use a little of mathematics, we can see that:
* 272 – 18 = 254!!! Coincidence???
I leave it open to the reader, but if we use this, it seems that the figure of 254 kg is the estimated weight of male 126 “adjusted” for stomach content. I am not telling that this is the true, I am just speculating of a possible explanation of the differences. However, this ignore the fact that the tiger did not weighed 272 kg but the he “bottomed” the scale with a maximum capacity of 600 lb (272.2 kg) so the weight was probably more and I estimated to be at c.260 kg "empty", which is close to the 261 kg estimated for male 105.
Is interesting that some sources mention the male 127 or 026, but in fact that is the same male 126 and the incorrect number is just a typo.
The average weights of the males:
So now that we got the conclusion that only 3 adult males were captured in Chitwan, we need to see were they got the figure of 235 kg for the 7 captures. In the books we only these weights (in kg):
M102: 200 & 200.
M105: 227+, 227+ and 261 (272+)
M126: c.260 (272+)
We know that they did not used the weights of 272+ as the maximum in the sample is of 261 kg, so making an speculation of the weights used, we can do this:
We can speculate that they use “230” instead of “227” as Male 105 bottomed the scale, but again, is just speculation. This also suggest that IF there were a “forth male” probably was a very large one, which excludes the possibility that the “4th male” was 123 as it was still young, but it could be the now mature male 104? Based in the information that we have it was not.
Now, what happen if we use only the known males? Let’s see:
Now let’s not forget that the male 102 was baited in the two captures, we can use also the “official” figure of male 105 and the same for the equally sized male 126, while “Banga Bhale” was not baited, according with Mishra (2010). The weights should be:
So it seems that the weight of 4 adult males from Chitwan is about 237 kg with net weight or at least 227.5 kg “adjusted”.
There is a male of 180 kg mentioned by Mishra (2010), but as we know that the male was indeed included in the document of Smith et al. (1983), was probably included as a “subadult”.
Conclusion:
As we can see, I manage to get all the tigers captured in Chitwan from 1973-1980, plus the other males captured in 1984.
My conclusion is that 3 adult males and 7 adult females were included in the study of 1983. It is more than sure that some of the 12 recaptures of the females included some of the new females that were captured latter as adults, but this was not the case in the males.
Also the “Baghmara” male was probably the male 126 and the difference in weight is probably just an estimation with empty belly, or just a random number for the book.
These are the results from my investigation. Like I always say, I invite to all to check the documents that I read and maybe you may get to other conclusions, or maybe you can get to the same one. There is a reference that I will like to read:
* Smith, J. L. D. (1984). Dispersal, communication and conservation strategies for the tiger (Panthera tigris) in Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Ph.D. thesis. University of Minnesota, St. Paul.
I could not found it, but something tells me that this paper can help us to clarify some of the “plot holes” of this movie that I could not solve entirely.
I hope you have enjoyed the reading, I wish the best to all.
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