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

[Brehm]

Great post Peter! Logical conclusions and a nice summary.

About your questions:

~a - Why is it wolves were seen in large packs in a region known for tigers (the eastern part of the Sichote-Alin Mountain Range) about a century ago by Velter and his companions? I mean, they caught 26 in a wolf trap in 6 weeks only.

One possible reason could be a more balanced ecosystem, with less human interference in those days. From what i've understood after your description, it looks like that the russian far east is a fragile environment for wolves, due to the reasons you listed. They face harsher conditions than their relatives from north america, which mostly live in a similiar environment, BUT, and there is a big but, they don't have to face tigers AND bears at the same time. There is also less prey variety in the amur region, so there is direct competition over the same prey especially with tigers. If hunter's also come into play and wolves are their prefered competitors to eliminate, they are the one's who will suffer the most from human and natural impact.


~b - Why is it timber wolves in the Russian Far East, known because of their large size, seem unwilling or unable to take on tigers if we also know they do not hesitate to harass and attack brown bears, who can grow to a larger size than tigers?  

After watching several documentaries, where wolf - bear interaction is showed, i think it could be wolves fighting style against larger predators. Against bears, they usually seem to harass them one by one from different angles. Even if they could overpower the bear (if numerous enough) if they would decide to charge from all angles, they don't want to take risks by losing members. In the documentary "viking wilderness", this tactic worked out, the bears were to slow and unable to catch a single wolf in the long run and cancelled the fight. The bear's weren't in real danger after all, but they quit and l

Against a tiger, this tactic won't pay possibly. Usually faster and more agile than a bear, a tiger could take out 1 or 2 wolves quickly, and if that should be the Alpha male or female...everyone can imagine.

My thought's, does it sounds plausible?

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