ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[Pckts]

(06-10-2015, 01:41 PM)'Brehmji' Wrote: Excellent topic, i really enjoyed reading this thread since a year :)

To add something on the tiger - wolf interaction in the russian far east, i found a study regarding to this:

https://books.google.at/books?id=ndb0QOv...&q&f=false

A book called "Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity"

with a chapter called

"Tigers and Wolves in the Russian Far East: Competitive Exclusion, Functional Redundancy and Conservation Implications"

I found this accidently on wikipedia, as reference for interaction between tigers and other carnivores. Sometimes i read wiki articles, to see if they adapted the newest level of research. I was quite surprised...
Some table scans from the book:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

In summary, from what I've understood after reading this, tigers limited wolf numbers due to competition about similiar prey and direct interspecific conflict.

At the end of page 188 it's written:

Accounts of historical shifts in the abundance of tigers and wolves are especially well documented in the Zapovedniks, where long term monitoring has been conducted. For instance, in Lazovski Zapodnik, Bromley (1935) reported that, although wolves were formerly absent, 105 wolves "had to be destroyed" in the 1940's, coincident with the low density of tigers. Wolf numbers declined consitently from the 1960's to the 1980's, at the same time as tiger population were recovering in the reserve. Wolf tracks rarely observed in the 1990's, and no tracks were registered in 1992 and 1993, where tiger numbers were high and stable (Khramtsov 1995).

In a time confronted with habitat loss and limited prey items, it sounds convincing, that wolves suffer a similiar effect from tigers like african wild dog's do from lions (officialy).

Is it possible, that in old days (like the times of Velter) the coexistence between tigers and wolves was perhaps a result of better environmental conditions? It sounds logical, but i don't know the conditions from those days...

Apart from that, are there any documented interactions between Bengal tigers and tibetan wolves from the past? Sadly, in places where both share the same habitat, either wolves or tigers became very rare, like Nampdapha or Manas on the Bhutan part.

 

 

 

The Indian Wolf is extremely rare, the only interaction between the two that I know of is a single wolf harassing B1 and B1 pays little mind to it for obvious reasons.

Dhole and Tiger interaction is another story, there are few stories of many dholes dying while fighting with a lone tiger but this brings up questions as to why?
Why loose significant pack #'s to kill a tiger? Its fishy at best, but its proven that tigers hunt dhole and @peter recently posted a awesome video of a tigress chasing a dhole pack all over, giving more credence to the idea that dholes are simply prey or pest to Tigers and nothing more. Dholes have become extremely rare in India, they are almost non existant in areas where tiger #'s are growing, is this due to tigers or hunting and deforestation or all 3, we don't know yet. But I assume its the same as Lion v Wild Dog #s
Dholes or wild dogs are simply to small and even with large pack #s they can't compete with the much larger cat. Barring a pack of 50 individuals who are completley commited to fighting a full grown tiger or lion, I just don't see any chance for them to compete without more land and prey to support all.

But a grey Wolf is completely different story, a pack of grey wolves may not be a serious threat to a male tiger or bear but they certainly will be threat to youngsters or cubs and possibly a tigress and they could possibly run off adults of either species from a kill if the pack is large enough. Grey wolves are large animals and work great together, 10+ of them is a threat to any animal IMO.
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