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

peter Offline
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( This post was last modified: 07-29-2015, 05:23 AM by peter )

'SHIKAR MEMORIES - A RECORD OF SPORT AND OBSERVATIONS IN INDIA AND BURMA' (Lt.-Col. H.S. Wood, London, 1934, 312 pages)

1 - INTRODUCTION

Wood was a medical doctor who spent nearly 36 years of his life in British India. I'm not quite sure as to the exact period, but based on what I read I'd say it was between 1890-1926, give or take one or two years.

The book doesn't top my list, but it is informing. Most of the content, as you guessed, is about hunting. Nearly all animals hunted in those days feature in a separate chapter and there also is a bit of advice in the preface:

" ... The true hunter must be a naturalist and botanist, as such knowledge then gives additional zest to the sport. The shikari must also cultivate his powers of observation. The old hunter sees and notices everything. The training for shikar is that of an athlete. One must be very fit to undertake serious big game hunting. My advice to attain this is to avoid alcohol and over-eating; to lead a regular life, and acquire mental occupation and a good conscience. Avoid late nights, big dinners, meets, and stuffy club-rooms. I am an advocate for tobacco in moderation; it is good as long as the smoke is not inhaled. A pipe or cigarette at the end of a hard day by the camp fire is very soothing. Some of the fittest men I know have been serious shikaris all their lives, and when they retire they look twenty years younger than their real age, and with the energy and vitality to enjoy life for the remainder of the allotted span ... " (pp. 8).

So there you have it. A medical doctor. Don't say he didn't tell you.

Although he adviced to change the rifle for a camera, Wood himself wasn't shy in the trophy department. His trophies were presented to the Bristol Museum:



*This image is copyright of its original author

     

2 - ASSAM AND SUNDERBANS TIGERS 

During the 36 years he was in British India, Wood shot 17 tigers. All tigers were shot in Assam. Two tigers were shot on foot, two were shot from the back of an elephant and twelve were shot from a machan. In his opinion, Assam tigers were large and, in contrast to those in other parts of India, often had long, white, hair. In his day, they were numerous in many parts of Assam.

Wood was familiar with the Sunderbans as well. He wrote tigers were numerous before many emigrants settled in that region. Many British who made their home in Assam had to travel through the Sunderbans in those days and not a few saw tigers:

" ... Many people, including myself, going to Assam by the Sunderbunds steamer-service have seen tiger on the banks of 'khals', and a Mrs. M. told me that, once when coming up a creek, three tigers swam a 'khal' just in front of the prow of the vessel, and no one on board had a rifle. Sitting on the deck one day with my wife, and just as the sun was setting, we saw a tiger emerge from the jungle downstream. It came for a drink. I rushed into my cabin, got my rifle and had a shot. I forgot to allow for the movement of the vessel, my shot threw up the sand a few feet beyond him, and he disappeared like a flash.

Many of these Sunderbund tigers were man-eaters, and did not hesitate to carry off men from the boats moored near the bank. Many a woodcutter and fisherman has never returned to his homestead. I do not know whether any European met with his death in this way, but as 'shikaris' from Calcutta were always going to Saugor and elsewhere to bag tiger it is likely. B., a well-known shikari in Assam, told me he had bagged thirty-five tigers in the Sunderbunds. The places where people had been killed were marked with red flags, and were put up to warn others ... " (pp. 42).

Today, Bhutan tigers are seen as remarkable, but in Wood's day tigers were seen in elevated regions as well:

" ... I have come across tigers in all sorts of country, in grass jungle, in grass jungle interspersed with patches of forest, in ravines and in mountainous places, where I have seen their tracks at an altitude of 6000 feet. Some years ago a tiger suddenly made its appearance at a rest house on the Pahgu Road near Darjeeling. This was at Tonglu, with an elevation of 10.374 feet ... " (pp. 43).
 
Wood wrote tigers were often found in caves, but not in Assam. The only exception was at the 'Kopili', but these caves were inhabited by bears.
  
In general, tigers were shy and tried to avoid man, but Wood knew of many instances where they were very bold:

" ... In Tezpur one walked along the Ex. Engineer's bungalow veranda at night; this had been freshly cemented, and the pugmarks were unmistakable. I once shot one at Tezpur not fifty yards from my gate, as will be spoken of later. At Haflong a tiger took away a pony feeding on the golf course, and one I never succeeded in bagging would enter the buffalo-sheds at night and kill, and moreover mauled a herdsman very badly when he went to investigate ... " (pp. 45).


3 - WHEN TIGERS AND HUMANS CLASH

A few weeks ago, in the thread about the Ranthambore male tiger who was arrested, tried and sentenced after killing a fourth human, one of those debating wrote a typical man-eater often directly goes for the neck, whereas other tigers attacking a human would lash out and retreat. Could be, but there are many exceptions to the rule. In the end, every tiger is an individual.  

Wood examined both natural kills and humans killed by tigers. Natural kills first:

" ... The tiger springs at his victim's side or flanks, holding on with his powerful claws. His main object is to paralyse the beast by biting deeply into the spine in the cervical, dorsal or lumbar regions. Deep wounds made by the canines are always apparent. The weight of the tiger, something like 450 to 500 pounds, helps also to pull the animal down ...  If the quarry is a large one, a horse, for instance, the tiger pursuing tries his utmost to hamstring the animal ... " (pp. 46).

" ... As to human victims, I have made post-mortems on several cases, and in almost every one the man has been seized by the chest, which showed two deep wounds in front and two behind, caused by the canine teeth. In one case, the scalp of a beater had been torn down over his ear, and in another, of a herdsman, the face and arms had been terribly mauled. In the latter case a tigress with two cubs attacked without provocation. The man was bringing in milk to Haflong, armed only with an umbrella. He was walking along a jungle-path and met this tigress with her offspring. All three dashed away into the jungle, but I suppose the cubs became separated from the mother. The man walked on and was suddenly attacked. He eventually beat off the tigress with his umbrella and came into Haflong for treatment ... " (pp. 47).

It seems there are differences between those who attack humans to defend themselves, those who strike out in anger when they feel trapped and those who habitually kill humans for food. Maybe experienced man-eaters directly go for the neck, but others learned to quickly overcome resistance by biting the torso. Man-eaters usually eat nearly everything:

" ... The man-eater leaves only the feet, hands and skull of his human victim. In the North Cachar Hills the relatives and friends organise in order to do all they can to recover these remains that they may be buried near the victim's village; for they say that if these are not recovered the man's ghost will always haunt the village ... " (pp. 47).
 
An experienced man-eater often is very determinded to secure a victim:

" ... At Kaitamabi, not far from Manipur (in the extreme east of India, where Wood was stationed for 7,5 years), a man-eater bit or tore away the sides of the grass-hut in which the coolies working on the telegraph line were lodged and bagged his victim ... " (pp. 45).  

In one chapter, the man-eaters of Langting feature:

" ... The scene of these tragedies is laid at the small railway station, Langting, on the Assam-Bengal Railway. The station lies on the railway between Silchar and Gauhati, not very far from the hill station of Haflong, where I lived after retirement. This little railway station, and the villages around, were in a state of panic for weeks, and traffic was very nearly held up. The station master had baricaded the station building with rice bags and, for a time, not a single person could venture outside his dwelling for fear of being snapped up by man-eaters ... " (pp. 91). 
 
This was a typical case of man-made man-eaters:



*This image is copyright of its original author



Two of the 'panthers' were shot very close to the railway station. Wood shot one of them. The first leopard was a young male in excellent condition, but the one shot by Wood was a very old and emaciated male with an empty stomach. He had attacked a woman collecting sticks a few days earlier. When she screamed for help, the Jemadar mahout and others came to her rescue. They told her to stay put, but she didn't listen and was killed but a short while afterwards. 

The other two, a leopard and a tigress, were enticed into traps. One of these was baited with a pig, whereas the other was baited with a goat. The tigress met with her end when she entered the cage with the pig. Wood saw the skin and skull of the tigress some time later. It was a very large animal with unworn teeth.

Wood got to two conclusions: 

a - A tigress will revenge herself after being deprived of her young or her mate
b - Once acquired by panther or tiger, the taste of human flesh is incurable.   

One could add one more: many man-eaters often are man-made.

When at Sylhet, " ... a boy came running into the station, saying that, as he and another boy were throwing rocks into a nullah to oust a civet cat, a large red beast had dashed out and killed his companion. The boy was brought in afterwards, and I at once saw from the teeth wounds in the chest that a tiger had killed the boy ... " (pp. 80-81). Wood, the D.C. and a sporting zamindar decided to go for him, but one of the beaters was bitten through the chest and the police surrounding the nullah omitted to kill the tiger when he left. A few months after this " ... the same tiger killed a man at Fenchugarj, fifteen miles from Sylhet. He was then tracked into a disused Mohammedan graveyard, but killed three more men in the attempt to bag him, and was shot by B. of the police before he could do more harm ... " (pp. 82). This tiger wasn't a man-eater, but a short-tempered animal who killed at least six humans in a few months.  


4 - SMELL, PELAGE, HABITS AND SIZE OF ASSAM TIGERS

a - Sense of smell

One often reads that the sense of smell is poorly developed in tigers. If what I saw in captive animals is true, however, I would get to a different opinion. They do not compare to canids and bears, but I agree with Wood:

" ... The sense of smell is very acute. The ethmoidal sinuses in the tiger's nose are very large ... " (pp. 49).  


b - An albino tiger

Wood is the only one who mentioned a true albino shot in Assam:

" ... No two tiger skins are alike, and the markings about the forehead and the tail vary very much. The colour of those specimens shot in the hot plains is much lighter than that of animals shot in hilly country or in thick forest. With age, and with preserved skins, the colour becomes paler. Many of these pale tigers have been described as White Tigers or Albinos. This is a mistake, because a tiger to be a true Albino must have no vestige of a stripe, and the iris must be blue. In a taxidermist's shop-window in Calcutta I saw a so-called white tiger exhibited. Certainly the stripes were fewer than those of the average tiger, but it was not an Albino. The only Albino tiger ever shot was obtained in Assam, where many people saw it .. " (pp. 49).


c - Skin

" ... The skin of a tiger or tigress in its prime has a sheen like that of a race horse, and one hardly finds a tick on it. In an older animal the hair is short, rough, and mangy, and one shot by the magistrate of Haflong had hundreds on him ... " (pp. 50-51). 


d - Size 

Wood shot 17 tigers, all in Assam. Of these, two were young males who taped 8.11 and 8.6. Of the other 15, at least two were females. The longest was 8.6, but he was sure the Langting man-eating tigress was a larger animal. 

That leaves 13 other tigers. My guess is the majority of them were males, but Wood didn't offer details. What is known is that at least four of them were large animals. The longest taped ten feet four and a half inches (316,23 cm.), the second longest was ten feet two inches (309,88 cm.) and the third one, shot near the Dehingi River, was nine feet ten and a half inches (300,99 cm.). The fourth male "... measured nearly ten feet (304,80 cm.), was very fat but mangy, and was swarming with ticks ... " (pp. 78). In total length, they more or less compared with the longest shot by the Maharajah of Cooch Behar and his guests.

Although he didn't state in what way they were measured, I'm sure they were measured 'over curves'. In those days, this was the most used method in Assam. An indirect confirmation was in the length of the largest male leopards he shot in that both taped well over 8 feet in total length (eight feet seven and a half and eight feet four and a half inches). When measured 'between pegs', the longest male leopards in India range between 7.8-7.11 (233,68 - 241,30 cm.).

The first tiger had a ruff and a beautiful pelt typical for a prime animal. When skinning the giant, Wood found a deep wound in the right frontfoot as well as many other wounds caused by claws. This tiger had been involved in a fight over a female a few days earlier. The other ten-footer, very heavy, also had a splendid coat and a great ruff. The tiger taping just under ten feet was shot near the Dehingi River.

By piecing things together and doing it again, I concluded the three big males, most probably, were shot just after the First World War (1918-1922 or thereabout).

Here's two photographs of two different tigers. The one at the top, shot near Haflong, wasn't one of the three big animals described above, but he was big.

The second tiger, below, was a young male (8.11 'over curves') Wood shot when he was stationed at Tezpur. This male had entered the cow-house of the Deputy Commissioner and mauled a large cow. Wood shot him the next day from a machan when the tiger returned and attacked the cow: 



*This image is copyright of its original author



Camp near the Dehingi River:



*This image is copyright of its original author



5 - TIGERS AND OTHER ANIMALS

a - Elephants

" ... It is useful to know that when beating for a tiger with a line of elephants the tiger will very often break back. When wounded he will charge the line, and if not knocked over will usually spring at the elephant's head. In this position the elephant cannot use his tusks, so puts his head down and tries to crush the tiger between it and the ground. He will then put his forefeet on his attacker and then, ..., will toss the body backwards and forwards till every bone is broken. I have seen this done in the case of a charging bear ... " (pp. 51).

" ... Elephants get fearfully mauled sometimes; my father had an elephant that had had a piece of the trunk bitten out high up, which exposed the trunk cavity. The poor brute could therefore only drink water by submerging the trunk above the hole, but in pouring this down his throat he lost a considerable amount ... " (pp. 52).


b - Wild boars and bears

" ... A tiger will hesitate to attack a solitary wild boar, but sometimes he does and a dour struggle ensues. I had a sporting servant who witnessed such a fight, and he told me that the tiger slunk away leaving the boar master of the situation. Whilst at Haflong I visited the scene of such a combat. The long grass for yards round was flattened down, and the earth torn up and covered with blood. From the tracks one could see that the tiger had bled profusely, and I concluded that the boar had had the best of it. Once, while shooting at Kopili (North Cachar Hills), I came on the droppings of a tiger, and in it were the hairs of a bear ... " (58).

In other books I read, also loaded with firsthand accounts, it was confirmed that some male Assam tigers follow elephant herds in order to prey on the calves. Many were killed. Most writers confirmed fights between wild boars and tigers were not uncommon. Tigers won most, but a mistake often proved to be costly.

It's interesting that Amur tigers, also heavily involved in wild boars, seem to do better in this respect. In a report on causes of death I posted some time ago, only one was said to be killed by a wild boar. Another case is mentioned in Heptner and Sludskij (German translation, 1980, pp. 156). There are no doubt more tigers who succumb in fights with wild boars, but these incidents apparently are few and far between.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - TIGERS (Panthera tigris) - peter - 07-29-2015, 04:38 AM
Demythologizing T16 - tigerluver - 04-12-2020, 11:44 AM
Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 07-28-2014, 09:54 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 07-28-2014, 10:02 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 07-29-2014, 12:56 AM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - peter - 07-29-2014, 07:05 AM
Tiger recycling bin - Roflcopters - 09-04-2014, 01:36 AM
RE: Tiger recycling bin - Pckts - 09-04-2014, 02:22 AM
RE: Tiger recycling bin - Roflcopters - 09-05-2014, 01:01 AM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 11-15-2014, 10:07 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 11-15-2014, 10:57 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 11-15-2014, 11:33 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 02-19-2015, 11:25 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - GuateGojira - 02-23-2015, 11:36 AM
Status of tigers in India - Shardul - 12-20-2015, 03:23 PM
RE: Tiger Directory - Diamir2 - 10-03-2016, 04:27 AM
RE: Tiger Directory - peter - 10-03-2016, 06:22 AM
Genetics of all tiger subspecies - parvez - 07-15-2017, 01:08 PM
RE: Tiger Predation - peter - 11-11-2017, 08:08 AM
RE: Man-eaters - Wolverine - 12-03-2017, 11:30 AM
RE: Man-eaters - peter - 12-04-2017, 09:44 AM
RE: Tigers of Central India - Wolverine - 04-13-2018, 01:17 AM
RE: Tigers of Central India - qstxyz - 04-13-2018, 08:34 PM
RE: Size comparisons - peter - 07-16-2019, 05:28 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - peter - 05-20-2021, 07:13 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - Nyers - 05-21-2021, 08:02 PM
RE: Amur Tigers - peter - 05-22-2021, 08:09 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - GuateGojira - 04-06-2022, 12:59 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - tigerluver - 04-06-2022, 01:08 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - tigerluver - 04-06-2022, 09:08 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - tigerluver - 04-06-2022, 11:30 PM
RE: Amur Tigers - peter - 04-08-2022, 07:27 AM



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