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

[peter]

Very nice photograph, Grizzly! One of a kind, I think. He's a bit different from the Amoy tigers I saw in books, but Amoy tigers apparently showed a lot of variation in size. The wide range (same for colour and stripe pattern) could have been a result of the description of Amoy tigers, which was a bit lacking. Maybe all tigers in the extreme south and west of China were included in Panthera tigris amoyensis when the end was near. But Panthera tigris corbetti is very different and tigers from Tonkin, not that far away, also were different. Same for those from central and northern parts of China.     

Some time ago, I posted a few newspaper reports about tigers shot in the southeastern part of China in the first decades of the last century. I also posted information about the total length of a few males and females shot in that region. These tigers had been measured 'between pegs', which was quite remarkable for that region. The thing that stuck most, again, was the amount of individual variation. Same for the books I read.  

The books have quite accurate descriptions of Amoy tigers. I will try to find them when I have some time. At the moment, it's a bit difficult.

Here's an adult female from Tierpark Berlin. The photograph was taken in 1972. Berlin has two zoos. I visited both. The zoo in the former western part of Berlin is a nice one, but I liked Tierpark Berlin better. The reasons are more room, less visitors, great scenery and many animals seldom seen in zoos. I saw rare deer, rare birds of prey (owls and quite a number of eagles, including the harpy), different bear subspecies, dholes (...), different leopard subspecies, cougars from different regions and representatives of three tiger subspecies (corbetti, sumatrae and altaica).   

In the days of east and west, I visited the eastern part of Berlin to buy a few books ('Saugetiere der Sowjet-Union' was one of them), watch a play written by B. Brecht and see the zoo (Tierpark Berlin). The male Amur tiger they had was the tallest captive big cat I ever saw. Many years later, I saw one who was about as tall in the facility I often visited. He was from Italy and his name was Elvis. I liked his voice and so did others, as he found a new home shortly after I saw him.   

Have a good look at these two photographs, as this tigress could have been the last of her kind (Panthera tigris amoyensis) in captivity. They really tried to find a male, but didn't succeed. She's very different from the captive Chinese tigers I posted about and apparently adapted to the harsh winters typical for that part of eastern Europe (at least, in those days):   

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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