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

[GuateGojira]

(11-28-2023, 06:40 PM)Apex Titan Wrote: Before I respond to Guate's post (which I will do in this thread from now) I wanna add to some of Peter's comments about "peer-reviewed" documents compared to other sources, which are just as authentic and reliable.

Peer-reviewed documents/studies are great sources of reliable data/info, but its also a fact that peer-reviewed documents doesn't cover all of it. On top of that, the data and information can be limited for various reasons. If we were to solely rely on or accept 'peer-reviewed' documents for reliable information, that means we would have to arrogantly dismiss and reject all the stories & accounts that old naturalists and experienced hunters like Jim Corbett, F.C. Hicks, Sanderson, Kesri Singh etc, wrote in their books, despite the fact that these people had multiple decades of field experience tracking and observing tigers, leopards, bears, elephants, buffaloes, wild boars etc. Even wildlife biologists in their scientific literature / papers will reference old-time naturalists and hunters.

Do we simply dismiss all the observations, information and accounts of the legendary Russian explorer Vladimir Arseniev, who wrote many books, including 60 works on the geography, wildlife and ethnography of all the regions he traveled, a man who explored and traveled (in several expeditions) the vast Ussuri taiga forests with his native guide Dersu Uzala? Was all his info reported in scientific "peer-reviewed" papers? No. But was Arseniev's books and information based on pure facts, authentic information and field observations? Yes. 

I'm not saying all hunter-stories are reliable, but those hunters with a reputable reputation that are respected by even modern biologists, stories are reliable.

Was the famous incident of the male Amur tiger carrying out a brutal, premeditated revenge murder on the Russian hunter Vladimir Markov reported in a peer-reviewed document? No. Was this case an established fact? Yes. An undeniable fact documented in history and a case which was professionally investigated by specialists and expert tiger trackers like Yuri Trush - the head of the 'Inspection Tiger Unit.'

Same goes for John Vaillant's great book, which was solely based on first-hand information and interviews with experts, biologists, rangers, naturalists, hunters, locals and natives.

Aside from 'peer-reviewed' information & studies, I found an abundance of authentic and just as reliable information from various other sources too, such as articles, magazines, books, interviews, videos, and documentaries (Information from experienced biologists, rangers, naturalists, and hunters). Not everything has to be reported in a scientific "peer-reviewed" document to be considered authentic or confirmed, that's just ridiculous.

The 'Siberian Tiger Project' biologists like Dale Miquelle, L. Kerley & Goodrich are no doubt authorities on wild Amur tigers, but they're far from being the best or most experienced. Miquelle has about 25 - 30 years of experience studying the ecology of wild Amur tigers in Primorye, whereas seasoned Russian biologists like Alexander Batalov and Yuri Dunishenko have over 50 years of field experience studying wild Amur tigers. Now where's the comparison? Mikhail Krechmar (Russian bear expert & hunting biologist) even called Batalov the largest bear specialist in the south of the Far East of Russia. Batalov is one of Russia's leading expert authorities on the ecology and biology of Amur tigers and bears.

Its also a fact what Peter said, not all biologists are active in publishing 'peer-reviewed' documents. Why? because there are various other ways for biologists to convey their message and report factual information and data based on their own field observations, such as interviews with journalists, scientific journals, articles, books and documentaries.

There's many old Russian biologists (like Batalov) & zoologists who have decades more field experience in studying wild Amur tigers than the STP biologists like Miquelle, Kerley, and Goodrich. But these old (far more experienced) Russian biologists are not active in publishing scientific peer-reviewed documents, so does that make their information and observations reported in articles, interviews with journalists, books, news reports etc, unreliable? Of course not. To say otherwise would be a joke. 

Another example: Yuri Kya and his team of experienced forest rangers found the partially-eaten carcass of a large male brown bear that was killed and eaten by a medium-sized tiger. On the spot, they found clear signs and traces of a prolonged furious fight, as well as tiger & large bear paw prints, resting place of the tiger near his kill, and a dead body. In spite of all the blatant evidence at the scene, some posters in pure denial (we know who) made pathetic excuses and said the kill-site wasn't "examined by experts", which is an absolute laughable statement to say. 

What is an "expert"? An expert is a specialist who's skilled and qualified at something. And that's exactly what Yuri Kya and his team are. Yuri Kya is a highly trained, experienced and seasoned forest inspector/ranger who's job is to protect the wild animals of the reserve. One of his particular skills and expertise is in judging, tracking and measuring the traces of wild animals in the forest. There's a good reason why even biologists rely on Yuri Kya and his team to conduct the census of wild animals in the Khekhtsir Reserve. Forest rangers spend far more time roaming and exploring the taiga than most, if not all, biologists do. They walk many miles in the forest daily and become very familiar with the animals and are able to accurately identify particular individual animals.

In addition to the numerous news reports and media outlets reporting this account, we also have two emails. In the 1st email, Mikhail Milizhek confirms that the killed bear was an adult brown bear with a palm callus width of 18 cm. In the 2nd email, we have first-hand confirmation from Yuri Kya himself, that the killed bear was indeed an adult male brown bear with a paw width of 18 cm.

Yuri Kya was not the only man who examined the kill-site, there were 2-3 other forest rangers with him, and all were able to conclusively determine that the large adult male brown bear was killed and eaten by a tiger they know very well.

Now was all this information reported in a scientific 'peer-reviewed' document? No. Is it as reliable and authentic as a peer-reviewed account? Definitely yes. In a court of law, would the tiger 'Odyr' have been convicted of murder? 100% yes. There was more than enough evidence at the kill-site to prove he's clearly guilty of killing the large male brown bear.

My point is, that solely relying on scientific 'peer-reviewed' documents for reliable information would severely limit a person's view and mind and make them ignorantly dismiss and reject plenty of other factual information from various other good sources. I've read many articles and (also watched) interviews with biologists with some great information about tiger ecology.

There's a good reason why biologists, zoologists and field researchers write books, do interviews with journalists, publish journals and feature in documentaries. You can even find good information about animals from experts and biologists on their social media (Facebook, Instagram etc).

This type of posts are the evidence about what I said before, this people can't stick to the topic of the discussion and like a bad politician when lacks of fundament, they deviate the conversation to other topics.

I ask again, WHEN we dismissed the old hunting records, the old reports and the old books? In what part do I mention anything negative against those histories and stories? I don't know why Apex is twisting this point and which are his objectives but certainly is nothing good.

In any part NOBODY is dismissing the old data (except for some of the old weights reviewed by Dr Slaght and team, which I already explained in my previous post), for the contrary, for some tiger populations old hunting records and old reports are the only thing that we have. In this discussion which was originally about the reliability of the information of the Siberian Tiger Project and the lack of reliable information to claim that Khabarovsk tigers are big if not giants based in a single heel print and random pictures with no referenc points, now they are mixing things with no reason or no logic. Now, If Apex (and maybe Peter too) is having one of the stupid "vrs" debates with other people in other forums, that is not reason to mix this debate with his own debates. It is sick to see how many times they mention this "tiger vrs bear" issue in every single post! Are we talking of the same thing????

Other thing, why the comparison between experts? Why the need to indirectly "discredit" the experts from USA in favor of those from Russia, when also the Siberian Tiger Project had Russian scientists in they lines? Why this necesity of create competition between people that are making a good work in investigating the information about the ecology of a highly endangered species? That concerns me. However, is important to remember that there is a difference between "qualitative" information and "quantitative" information.

Qualitative information is the one based in reports and observations taken during an specific time in the field. Is very useful for traking efforts and to know the status of a species in the short therm. People like Batalov are good examples. Even people like Valmik Thapar in India produce this type of information, but the problem is that in Science, if you make an experiment and got a result you need to reproduce the experiment in order to see if you get the same result and also publish the information in order to be review by pers and make it a fact. Here is when the Quantitative information enter.

The Quantitative information is the one that is adquired via several scientific methods, when statistic calculations are applied and its results are the most important one because can be used for long therm conservation. The study of the Siberian Tiger Project surpass all the previous observations of field Rusisan experts not because its information was "more reliable", but because they took all this information from the old Russian experts and test them with the modern scientific methods and they got reliable results, they "replied the experiment" tracking tigers and confirmed (or discarted) the old information and published the results that now are used to save the tigers.

As we can see, the Qualitative information is good, reports like the book of Vaillant are very valuable for tigers study and general knowledge, but is just qualitative as is a single report of a single event. The interesting thing to understand is to see if the behaviour of this particular tiger is something that may happen with any other tiger, or is just a singular event for this particular specimen. Then, the results of that study will be quantitative and will produce reliable results about tiger behaviour in general and will generate action plans and policies to be take in count for actions in the future. Qualitative is important information that generate the base of the theoretical framework, but Quantitative data is science for future and the one that is usefull to take important decisions for conservation.

So, both information types complement each other, and both are usefull. But at the end they are just steps in the same ladder to knowledge and both can be used depending of the situation. Valmik Thapar understood this very well, as he not only included his own personal qualitative observations, but he also used the quantitative data produced by scientists in the field. That is why his book "Tiger the Ultimate guide" is such a great book, as it shows the perfect balance.

Based in what I read from the posts of Peter and particularly from ApexPredator, I see that they are not reading, not entirely, or ar not paying attention to what I write. They are constantly deviating from the main discussion and the two main original points. So, what's the point in spending so much effort explaining something, if the people that debate with you are not even paying attention? Maybe I'm throwing pearls before pigs, like the Bible say, I don't know at this point. But certainly I ask to the people that is reading all these posts to read all, to be self-taught and self-critical and to investigate and read both types of inormation, and then you will reach the same conclutions that I. Reply