Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers

[Dr Panthera]

(06-22-2017, 11:55 PM)Pckts Wrote: Small compared to Selous or the Serengeti is one thing, Tanzania holds 16,830 lions in 2010, and the serengeti and Selous are the two largest reserves with in Tanzani, between the two, they hold 12,117 lions if you include Tarangire. So more than half of all lions in the world exist there, compare that to of 3,000 total tigers left in the wild and most likely less than that in india. From a scientific standpoint I get what you're saying but from a practical standpoint, the reserves are massive, they can easily sustain more tigers and we really only know about a fraction of the tigers that live there, so I certainly wouldn't say they live in small isolated reserves.

Camera traps are fantastic tools but they too aren't with out flaws, many animals have learned to avoid them and even the ones they use in Kanha are few and far between, usually in areas where tiger traffic is well known and easily accessible to humans. The forest of Kanha and Pench have many terrains and the higher you go the harder it is to trek obviously but that doesn't mean that it's hard for the tiger, tigers are as dense there as they are in other areas of the same reserve we just don't get to see them as often.

I agree that young or weak tigers are pushed to the fringes, but the area between prime habitat and the fringes are massive, at least the areas I saw. This is of course, to the naked eye. In terms of conservation, the amount of area they have left isn't satisfactory, they need more, much more. But if we were to sustain their existing territory from here on out and turn up our poaching patrol and destroy the wild animal trade, stop our intrusion into their remaining habitat, there is no reason that the remaining protected areas couldn't sustain a large and satisfactory ecosystem for the rest of time IMO.

I agree 100% with your assessment on dosage, you're the absolute expert and I differ to your expertise and enjoy your posts whenever you decide to do so.
@Dr panther

Nothing would please me more than having tigers fill all possible habitat and build up a robust population ensuring genetic enrichment and the future of the species, however your "optimism" is not shared by tiger biologists or all tiger conservation specialists, we need to consider the following:

* The Central Indian landscape is a promising habitat with several TCAs ( Tiger Conservation Areas)

* Tigers like all solitary large carnivores need massive territories a 1000 square kilometer reserve would provide space for about 100 adult tigers ( space wise)

* Tigers also need sufficient prey base ...an empty forest may have enough space but what would tigers eat? They can't live on muntjac, monkeys, and rodents. The Russian far east forests have enough undisturbed space but barely any prey ( tiger density less than 1/100 square kilometers) , In Sumatra, Malaysia, and Thailand there are massive protected areas but then again not enough prey ( tiger densities 1 to 4 tigers/100 square kilometers ) ..we need to build up the prey base and conserve it to protect tigers ( food wise).

* India has 1.2 billion people more than the population of any continent except Asia , hundreds of millions of Indians live in rural areas and are poor, their livelihoods may depend on resources in tiger habitat and the conflict seems inevitable, the lessons of Panna and Sariska were very painful ( where poachers wiped out the tigers there and we needed to re-introduce them ) active anti-poaching effort is crucially important. Reply