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

[peter]

TIGERS AND BEARS IN RUSSIA - X - CAUSES OF DEATH


01 - All factors combined - Amur tigers killed by humans, other tigers, wild boars and bears 1985-1996.

Humans accounted for most dead tigers (nearly 90%), but in these 12 years 11 tigers were killed by other tigers and 7 were killed by bears. Starvation accounted for 6 more and wild boars added four more. Quite many tigers died of unknown causes:

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02 - Humans - skull of a male Amur tiger poached.

Judging from the teeth, the skull probably was that of a young adult male tiger. I wouldn't know about relatives (upper canine length divided by upper skull length), but there's no question male Amur tigers have the longest upper canines in absolutes. Based on what I saw in the skulls I measured, they also have the most robust (width of the canines near the insertion in the jaw):

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03 - Humans - large tigress hit by a car

I saw a video of the tigress just after the accident had happened. She was lying near the road. Although she was treated, she didn't survive the injuries to her spine. The accident happened in the period canine distemper was creating havoc. It could be this tigress too demonstrated strange behaviour (some young male tigers were filmed walking on a road in broad daylight), but I'm not sure if canine distemper was the cause:

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04 - Unknown - this tiger was found dead.

I've posted a number of photographs of Amur tigers found dead in recent years. The cause of death was unknown in most cases. I don't think it was canine distemper in this case, as most tigers affected by this disease were thin as a rail when they perished or had to be shot:

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05 - Bears - This is an account of an incident that happened in the days of the Sowjet-Union.

I found this book some years ago on a market. When the seller saw I was interested, he said he would sell it for a cup of coffee. I agreed. The first scan is of the cover. The second has a story about a fight between a bear and a tiger. A hunter from Vladivostok saw crows circling in the forest. He followed them and found a place where a tiger and a bear had fought in the snow. They found the dead bear, but not the tiger. He had fled when they arrived.

As the fight happened in winter, I assumed a 'Schatun' had been involved. Black bears, as far as I know, always hibernate. Some brown bears, as a result of a lack of fat, do not. They wander through the taiga in search of food. Many are desperate animals, willing to engage even a tiger. At times they win, but this one did not:

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*This image is copyright of its original author

06 - Bears - a mail of Linda Kerley on bears and tigers in Russia. The scan isn't great (I lost parts of sentences), but I posted it anyhow because she knows about bears and tigers.

Kerley replied to a question of an AVA-poster (I thought it was Jungle Sprout). She said some tigers specialize on bears. When hibernation starts, these specialists suffer. Kerley also wrote some bears follow tigresses with cubs in winter ('Schatuns'). These non-hibernating bears displace, fight, kill and eat tigers in winter. Most of these, so it seems, tigresses with cubs or immatures.

Tigers kill bears of all sizes up to the largest and healthiest female brown bears. She was another one who said tigresses also hunt and eat bears. The last sentence says it all: in tigers and bears, anything can happen:

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07 - Bears - two incidents between tigers and bears in 2008.

In one case, a tigress with cubs was harrassed by a bear. They fought and both were wounded. The bear didn't get it his way. A second fight happened between a male tiger and a black bear (probably a male, as female Himalayan black bears only average about 80 kg., whereas male tigers average 190 kg.). Traces in the snow would have been a good headline:

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