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

[peter]

WaveRiders

I take your reply as a 'yes' to the proposal in my last post, meaning we're in business. Very good. As to your reply. Although interesting, it's a bit lengthy. So much so, that I decided to select a few points that stuck out. This time, I'll respond from the top down. 


Ad 1 - Nepal tigers

1a - Two more 600-lbs. male tigers

I remember the post of Tigerluver on the 2 Chitawan male man-eaters allegedly weighed in the nineties of the last century (both over 600 lbs.), but the report wasn't confirmed. I propose to wait for more information. For now, we have 4 Nepal male tigers reaching or exceeding 600 lbs. (2 confirmed and 2 unconfirmed).

1b - Mishra

You wrote I referred to a few male Nepal tigers mentioned in Mishra's book ('Bones of the Tiger', Lyons Press, USA, 2010) some years ago, but didn't use the data for the tables on Nepal tigers I posted. This is true. There are 3 reasons.

One is the focus in the tables was on length. It is a fact that Mishra didn't provide information on the length of the tigers he mentioned in his book. Two is the tables are based on tigers measured before 1940. I didn't want to mix 'then' and 'today', because of the difference in conditions. Three was Mishra's information wasn't accurate. The first male was " ... just under 400 pounds ... " (pp. 45), whereas the second was " ... about 450 pounds ... " (pp. 132). Also remember that one of the tigers, Bange Bale, lost a fight for territory and became a man-eater (pp. 122). Not your typical tiger.    

1c - The average of Chitawan male tigers

You concluded that my proposal to remove immature males from the table would result in a distorted picture. I disagree. There's no question that some of the tigers I used for the table were immature. I included them, but added that the picture was distorted to a degree: immature is immature.  

As to your remark on what a tiger population is. My take is a population consists of cubs (up to 1 year old), adolescents (1-2 years of age), young adults (3-4 years of age), adults (5-12 years of age) and old tigers (12 years and over). And then there are incapacitated animals and transients. Some no doubt get to old age, but they usually don't stand a chance in an encounter with a healthy male. For this reason, they often live on the fringes. Not a few of them develop into cattle-killers or man-eaters and many are killed as a result.     

You wrote the average total length for Chitawan males (measured 'over curves') is " ... somewhat biased towards large males as Chitawan was more then other areas ... the 'private' hunting ground of the Maharajah of Nepal and his personal guests ... ". You have little doubt that " ... every year local shikaris made sure to have available a good stock of large tigers for the Maharajah before the hunting season started ... ".

I understand, but disagree. Chitawan tigers were protected. This means the population, if anything, should be more representative than in other regions. Did it show in some ways? Yes, the tables showed more variation, more exceptions and higher averages than in regions with similar conditions but no protection (northwestern India).

Was there selection at the gate? I don't think so. In Nepal, baits were used to lure tigers. Which tigers would have taken these baits? The answer is territorial males. Most of them were large animals. This is typical for territorial males in hotspots. I don't think they were selected. Chitawan tigers were large because Chitawan was a hotspot. They also were seldom hunted. The answer to the question why the percentage of prime males shot was lower than in other regions also is protection. In regions with good conditions, chances are females will have more cubs and these in their turn stand a better chance to get to adulthood. The result is relatively less prime animals.
   

1d - Adjustments

I agree we disagree on adjustments. There are two reasons:

* When a weight is recorded in the field and the scale is accurate, you deduct the weight of the scale and have a reliable result. This is a fact. The next question is if the outcome has to be corrected or not and if so, to what extent. The problem is the debate on this issue will be affected by opinions, not facts.   

* Biologists working with wild big cats read peer-reviewed documents and books. For this reason, they know that adult wild male tigers kill every 5-15 days. If we assume male tigers kill every 10 days and leave the kill after 3, it means every third or fourth male, at any given moment, needs to be adjusted. Not all. This regarding the unbaited.

As for the tigers baited. In Nepal, not a few male tigers sedated by biologists were baited. How deal with them? Specialists told me the amount of adjustment is different from the amount of meat actually consumed. It shouldn't be too difficult to get to a table with the amount of adjustment on the vertical axis and the amount of time on the horizontal axis.  

The male tiger in the photograph below had been courting a female. The one who shot him wrote he was both long and well developed. His stomach, however, was as flat as a newspaper. He had to be well below his usual weight. What to do? Adjust or publish the actual weight? My proposal is to use the actual weight and add relevant information. 

The Cooch Behar data say 10 gorged male tigers were 59 pounds heavier than non-gorged males of similar length. This is reliable and accurate information. If a healthy male can gain 59 pounds, he could also lose them when courting a female. This means that a male (about 460 pounds) could range between 400 (460 - 60 after courting) and 520 pounds (460 + 60 after gorging himself) roughly.  

Let's assume an adult Nepal male tiger in good condition is 480-490 pounds. Also assume he compares to a Cooch Behar male tiger in most respects. This means that an average male, depending on circumstances, could range between 420 and 550 pounds. When you know the tiger you sedate, you should know. When you weigh him after courting, you know he will be well below his normal average. After gorging himself, however, he will be well over. What to do when you use him for a document? I propose to use the real weight and add the specifics. In small samples, this can result in distortion, but in a large sample chances are things will even out.  

Here's the 10.1 male tiger shot in the western part of Nepal:             
     

*This image is copyright of its original author

 
Ad 2 - Tigers in northwestern India

2.1 - How to measure a tiger 'over curves' - Hewett, Dunbar Brander and others

The method used to measure tigers in India a century ago ('over curves') often was discussed by hunters. One reason was the difference in length between tigers measured in the period 1820-1880 and 1880-1940. Another was the difference between regions in the period 1880-1940. The lengthy debate was concluded by Sterndale, who adviced hunters to use a different method ('between pegs'). Although his advice was followed, most hunters continued measuring tigers 'over curves' because it wasn't easy to find a flat piece of ground and move the tiger. 

Most hunters who measured tigers in both ways concluded the difference between both methods was about 6-7 inches in a long animal, 5-6 inches in an average male and 4-5 inches in a short male. Mazak, a century later, confirmed the difference in a long captive male Amur tiger (319 cm. in total length 'between pegs' and 336 cm. 'over curves') was just under 7 inches. Case closed?

No. The problem with the old method was it could be applied in different ways. Most tiger hunters wrote about methods, measurements and results in their books. If you take a closer look, however, you'll find most just regurtated observations of others. Nobody wanted to disagree with Corbett or the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, would they? 

The only two who discussed methods at length and based their conclusions on their own experience were Hewett and Dunbar Brander. Did they agree with the others? No. Both agreed the difference in adult tigers was 2-5 inches if the method was applied with accuracy.  

What was the difference between them and the Maharajah of Cooch Behar in an average male tiger? Hewett and Dunbar Brander said 3 inches, whereas it was 5,45 inches in Cooch Behar. This means that a 9.7 male tiger measured by Dunbar Brander or Hewett, when he would have been measured 'between pegs' as well, would have been 2-3 inches longer than a tiger of that length measured in Cooch Behar. 

A remarkable difference. How Hewett and Dunbar Brander explain the difference? The answer is accuracy.    


Ad 3 - Smythies

3.1 - The 9.4 leopard  

When I read about the 9.4 leopard in his book, the result was distrust. After some time, I decided for a restart. I read the book twice, took my time and concluded the measurements regarding tigers are reliable. The reasons were explained in the posts on tigers in northern India and Nepal. 

But what about the 9.4 leopard? 

I found records of (Persian) leopards exceeding 160 cm. in head and body length (measured 'over curves') in Heptner and Sludskij ('Die Saugetiere der Sowjetunion', Band III, Jena, 1980, pp. 176-177, 191). In the JBNHS (Vol. XXVII, pp. 933-934), there was an exchange on a very large leopard skull. The skull was almost as long as the skull of an average Indian tigress. Some time ago, I posted a story about the alliance between an old male tiger and a very big male leopard ('Call of the tiger', Lt.-Col. M.M. Ismael, 8 Gurkha Rifles, London, 1964, pp. 94-147). The leopard had a massive head and was 7.10 in total length 'between pegs'. He was the one doing the killing.

I have more reports of male Indian leopards ranging between 7.6-7.11 (measured 'between pegs'). Animals of this length can exceed 8 feet 'over curves' (up to 8.75), but the giant shot in Nepal still is 10 inches longer than the second longest and 12 inches longer than the longest mentioned in the book of the Maharajah of Cooch Behar. It's very difficult to grasp, especially when we consider his dressed skin was 10.1! 

 
3.2 - Tigers of 12 feet in total length 'over curves'

In this department, we disagree. Chitawan shows that pristine conditions, protection and genes can produce 600-lbs. males close to 11 feet 'over curves' today. Tigers of that length were also recorded in Annam and a few other regions (southwestern India, Manchuria and Russia). V. Mazak also measured a (captive) tiger just exceeding 11 feet 'over curves'. The number of reports on tigers well exceeding 11 feet 'over curves' is quite remarkable. Were they unable to measure a tiger or were tigers a bit larger two centuries ago? Hewett and some others had no doubt as to the answer and they were not the only ones.

The Jankowski's shot Amur tigers well exceeding even 12 feet in the days Manchuria still had tigers. Others, like Baikov, confirmed. Remember the captive Amur tiger standing against a gate in a Slovak facility posted by Amnon? Watch the size of the skull and the total length:   

*This image is copyright of its original author

This captive male was exceptional, but big cats of similar size (both lions and tigers) have been shot and measured more than once. Most don't know about these animals, because they are never mentioned in modern documents and books.

Yudakov and Nikolaev measured the height of scratches left on trees in the seventies of the last century. They ranged between 210-290 cm. in height. This one could have reached 290 cm. or just over: 

*This image is copyright of its original author

   
Erich 'Klant' Hagenbeck told me he had seen the descendants of what he called Manchurian tigers half a century ago. Some of them were so large (and wild) they could not be used in acts. Same for the descendants of the pure Indian tigers Tony Hughes saw in an American facility. Although unconfirmed, these stories are definitely not in the department of rumours and hearsay. The old man who came over to see me when I was in a museum, confirmed that some tigers he shot or saw shot in India when he was young well exceeded the limits often used by today's researchers.  

What I'm saying is there could have been differences between then and now. Two centuries ago, many regions in Asia were still dominated by animals. In regions saturated with tigers, villagers at times had no option but to leave. Read Boomgaard's book for examples ('Frontiers of fear - tigers and people in the Malay world 1600-1950', Yale University Press, 2001). In Sumatra and, in particular, Java, relatively more people were killed by tigers than in India, where whole districts had been deserted as a result of man-eating tigers (pp. 61-86). On Java, the pendulum swung towards humans after about 1820 and it's likely densely populated regions in India saw a similar trend.

After 1860 or thereabout, apart from a few isolated regions, the pendulum stopped swinging. Animals were on their way out and humans multiplied like never before. Many hunters wrote tigers responded to shrinking habitats, empty forests and hunting pressure by decreasing in size. Based on what I read, I concluded the adaption started between 1820-1870. 

You wrote small adult males range between 160-175 kg. in India, which is true. The information we have, however, points towards an average well over 200 kg. and there's also no question that some males exceeded 272 kg. in Nepal. This although the total number of wild tigers is less than 4000, of which only 200 live in Nepal. Any idea about the number of adult males in Nepal? Yet 2 of them, and possibly 4, exceeded 272 kg.

I do not doubt that there would have been more exceptions 200 years ago, when there could have been over 100 000 tigers in Asia. This notion was confirmed in central parts of Nepal, where male tigers shot in pristine conditions were 2-4 inches longer than male tigers shot in regions where they were hunted all the time. In exceptional animals, the difference could have been even more outspoken. To keep it short: I wouldn't dismiss records or 12 feet tigers shot 150-200 years ago.     

Here's a male Corbett tiger who allegedly killed and consumed a number of people. He was long and very tall (watch the length of the legs):

*This image is copyright of its original author

Also remember we only have information about some animals in some regions. Many others went unnoticed. If those who hunted large animals a long time ago were right, chances are big tigers will not often be noticed. They in particular are elusive. The male Amur tigers studied by Yudakov and Nicolaev ranged between 10-12 cm. in pad width, but one they didn't see had a width of 13,5 cm.: a significant difference. 

Conditions and opportunities have an effect on size. Anyone who has doubts is encouraged to read a bit on the length and weight of humans. Between 1955 and 1990, a relatively short period of time, males in northwestern Europe, depending on region, gained 3-7 inches in length. In hotspots, the gain was even more pronounced. They never lost their inches, as conditions still favour them.  


Ad 4 - Biologists, hunting records and dismissals

In the last years, a lot has been written about biologists, peer-reviewed documents, hunting records and reputation. I agree with the points you made, but it is a fact that not one even tried to get to a decent evaluation. It also is a fact that only very few used the opportunity to visit museums in order to increase their knowledge on skulls. The result is the same old data are regurgitated time and again.

I understand, as morphology is not a priority. Tiger biologists had no option but to act. This they did and the result is we still have tigers. Another result is their numbers have increased in some regions. The knowledge on tiger ecology also has increased.               


Ad 5 - Preference

You wrote you didn't see a lion or a tiger in your cradle, but you were wrong. I never met people who got 'The man-eating leopard of Rudraprayag' or 'The little Brehm' when they were young. Your parents were the lion and the tiger you didn't see. Only very few have parents like that. Reply