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

Options

peter

Co-owner of Wildfact

2,611 Replies

34 Topics

Joined: Mar 2014

Reputation: 52

#2,582

01-14-2022, 10:32 PM

ERLEBNIS ERDE: SIBERISCHER TIGER - SEELE DER RUSSISCHEN WILDNIS (documentary, 2021)

1 - Introduction

There are plenty of documentaries about wild Amur tigers. Although interesting, most are somewhat outdated. A few days ago, I saw a very recent (2021) documentary on the ARD (Germany): 'Erlebnis Erde: Siberischer Tiger - Seele der Russischen Wildnis'.

It took Franz Hafner and his crew a long time to find tigers. All in all, they needed about 18 months (...) to produce a documentary of 44 minutes only. In my opinion, Hafner succeeded in most respects. Quite an achievement if we add the conditions were all but easy. Hafner not only faced swarms of mosquitos, but severe cold. Most of all, he faced the tiger. He said they were very aware of his team.

This post has a few remarks about the documentary.

2 - Links

Here's the link to a 30-second preview:

https://www.daserste.de/information/repo...o-100.html

Here's a link to the full documentary:

https://www.daserste.de/information/repo...o-100.html

If the links don't work, visit the site of the ARD.

3 - Content

The documentary first of all offers many great views. Most of us take it for granted, but it isn't. Sichote-Alin is a fascinating region where the arctic and the subtropics meet. In many ways, it's unmatched. Most pioneers were amazed at what they saw. The books they wrote offer many detailed descriptions of what they saw. Actually seeing the scenes yourself, however, is very different from reading about it. On a large screen, Hafners documentary is quite breathtaking.

Hafner and his team tried to find tigers for a long time. All early attempts ended in failure. You really have to give it everything you have and hope you get lucky one day. And when you find them, chances are they already knew about you. Meaning they have to trust you before they show themselves. In most of Sichote-Alin, they don't. Wild tigers are very elusive animals comparing to ghosts. In the end, Hafner decided to visit the Bikin Valley. This part of Sichote-Alin still has pristine forests and animals haven't been hunted in a long time. This means they're not as wary as in other regions.

Although they succeeded in filming quite a few tigers, the focus is on a tigress and her two cubs (a male and a female). The tigress is an able hunter. One day, the crew had the good fortune to witness a successfull hunt in the snow. It no doubt is one of the highlights of the documentary.

In his second year, the male cub left his family to find a home for himself. Although he already was a skilled hunter, he remained elusive. The reason was adult male tigers. One of the scenes shows him responding to the call of an adult male tiger. When he heard the loud bass at close range, the young male hissed, bared his teeth, made himself as small as possible and immediately retreated. The fear is very visible.

Talking about adult male tigers. Hafner and his team succeeded in capturing some nice scenes of males visiting and rubbing a smell tree. Compared to the young male, they, although a bit leaner, were more muscular and bigger.

According to Hafner, the health of a tiger doesn't depend on his skills only. About every 4 years, there is a crop failure in the Russian Far East. Animals depending on these crops have no option but to disperse. Tigers follow them, but this means risks have to be taken.

For those interested in tigers and bears. According to Hafner, (brown) bears top the food chain in Wild Russia. In the Bikin Valley, however, this is not the case. Bears, that is to say, do not visit, let alone appropiate, kills of adult male tigers. Tigers hunt bears, and Himalayan black bears in particular. In good conditions, and 2020 and 2021 apparently were good years, male tigers are bulky animals occasionally getting close to 300 kg.

Those interested in wild boars will not be disappointed as well. Hafner succeeded in filming a few of them. The close-up's show bulky individuals wiith impressive tusks. Ussuri wild boars are the largest of all.

Although tigers today have a lot of room, Sichote-Alin, apart from two large cities (Chabarowsk and Vladivostok), has quite a few small settlements. Trees are felled in a number of districts. The result, apart from destruction, is stress. People living in small settlements have to be wary and the same is true for tigers living close to these settlements. Every now and then, tigers enter them. One of them, a tigress, did it more than once to hunt dogs. This is why local rangers decided to track her down. She was darted from a distance of about 20 yards, meaby a bit more. When hit, she immediately attacked. When she had crossed half the distance, a fire cracker exploded. The attack was abandoned and the tigress was arrested.

Time and again I noticed rangers in Sichote-Alin are very capable. In order to avoid problems between tigers and humans, they act as soon as the unsigned treaty between man and tiger is threatened. In Sichote-Alin, tigers have a bit of credit because they, to a degree, limit the population size of wolves and bears in some districts. In spite of that, there's not much room for errors. One dog isn't a crime (everyone can make a mistake), but two is one too many and rules are rules. This most probably is the best strategy in regions where man and tiger are neighbours.

Anything else? Yes. This is one of the documentaries that really offers a lot of tigers. Although Hafner used a few old photographs, the footage is recent and special. All in all, I'd say he should be very happy with the result.

4 - Size

The adult males Hafner captured on film (about halfway the documentary) seemed to be healthy and quite large. Although not as big as the remarkable Duisburg Zoo tiger, this model seems to dominate in the Bikin Valley. Compared to the captive male Amur tigers I saw, Bikin Valley tigers seem a bit more square as well as more robust. This impression, however, could have been a result of the season. In winter, Amur tigers carry an extra layer of fat and a denser coat.

The tables I posted (see the previous posts) say captive male Amur tigers average 495-496 pounds and just over 9.11 in total length measured 'between pegs'. The weight I found, as a result of the factors discussed, could have been a bit low. This was the opinion of those I consider to be 'in the know' as well. How do their wild relatives compare?

We don't know. Only few adult wild tigers are weighed and measured. It is, however, well known captive tigers often lack the development typical for their wild relatives. Wild tigers are big game hunters that need a lot of training. Not all tigers succeed. Amur tigers hunt wild boars and face competition of black and brown bears. Himalayan black bears can exceed 450 pounds at times and an average adult male Ussuri brown bear ranges between 550-600 pounds. Recent information says adult male tigers are not displaced by bears, but young adults and females, at times, are. This means size (weight) is a factor to consider.

Same for population size. When the Siberian Tiger Project (STP) started, individual variation, judging from the table published in 2005, seemed to be limited. The difference between 1992 and 2022 is the number of adult wild Amur tigers has increased. As a large population produces more individual variation than a small population, it is likely tigers will respond. I'm not saying the days of Baikov will return, but it's likely some wild Amur tigers will approach the size of some of their large captive relatives.

5 - Pictures

The 2 pictures in this paragraph, in order to prevent confusion, are not from the documentary. Both males, however, compare to the males seen in the documentary (referring to their general appearance). The first male, a youngish adult judging from the teeth and the colour of his nose, has a large head, but isn't as massive as the second male.

These large heads, by the way, are not a result of coincidence or selection. The males featuring in the documentary also have relatively large and heavy heads. According to V. Mazak (1983), the length of the head in captive male Amur tigers can be as much as 20% of the head and body length. If we add the width of the rostrum and the length and width of the upper canines in particular, the conclusion is Amur tigers have a large head and relatively large teeth.

With 'relative', I mean they have larger than expected teeth. The question is why. It most probably isn't a result of the size of the animals they hunt. Male tigers in northern and northeastern India hunt larger and heavier animals. Although they too have large and heavy heads as a general rule, their teeth seem to be relatively smaller. This is confirmed in skulls of captive tigers. Compared to skulls of Amur tigers, skulls of male Indian tigers, although a tad shorter, usually are as heavy or heavier. The upper canines, however, usually are a bit shorter and not quite as robust at the insertion.

Bones are a result of function. Amur tigers need extra large and strong upper canines, that is. The only reason I can think of is wild boars and bears. Amur tigers hunt both and both animals, even if they're similar in size, are quite agile and relatively massive, especially in the region of the neck. Amur tigers need large canines able to withstand pressure from different angles for a prolonged period of time in order to overcome the resistance of both as quickly as possible. The reason is both wild boars and bears can be dangerous. Tigers have been wounded and killed by both.

If they target large wild boars and bears, and research says adult males hunt female brown bears up to their own size (weight), they need more than large teeth. They also need strong muscles in the upper part of the body, including the neck. It is, in this respect, interesting that captive male Amur tigers lose size and weight after reaching 7 or 8 years of age. This, however, is not true for the circumference of the neck: the older the tiger, the bigger the neck.

Anyhow. Wild Amur tigers, although (most probably) not longer or heavier, do seem to be a bit more robust than their captive relatives. Here's two examples of what I mean: