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

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(08-13-2019, 12:24 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: Though Live Science mentioned that there is a controversy over how many living subspecies should be recognized, I don't understand how they could have missed out the fact that Bengal tigers are the heaviest wild tigers on average at least, implying that the Siberian tiger is bigger than the Bengal tiger in the wild, even apart from captivity: https://www.livescience.com/27441-tigers.html

"The largest tiger subspecies, the Siberian, also called Amur, are 10.75 feet (3.3 m) long and weigh up to 660 pounds (300 kilograms), according to National Geographic. The smallest tiger is the Sumatran, which weighs 165 - 308 pounds (74 - 139 kg), according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Tigers also have very long tails, which can add around 3 feet (one m) to their overall length, according to Sea World.

Where tigers live and what they eat
Wild tigers live in Asia. Larger subspecies, such as the Siberian tiger, tend to live in northern, colder areas, such as eastern Russia and northeastern China. Smaller subspecies live in southern, warmer countries, such as India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia."

Well, that article was kind of "rough", not going too deeply in details. Of course when looking at all tigers, captive and wild many think without a doubt, that Siberian tigers are the biggest even though in wild there haven´t been so big ones lately. But when one subspecies has been considered as biggest for at least century or two, it is quite natural that it doesn´t change over night. Who knows if some want to see more studies too before declaring Bengal tigers as biggest. 

In forums like this things happen faster, than in science community, year or five years, even decade can be short time, too short to make big changes to some declarations. Especially if there are indicators, like captive animals, that some short term change can be reversed. It has to be remembered, that wild Siberian tigers were hunted to almost extinction and they have had quite short time to recover. What was situation 1900 was quite different, than it was 1940-1970, then was it 2005 there was one study about tiger sizes in Russia and situation was what it was. It will be really interesting to see if/when there is next study and are results different and what is trend.

Yes, there are good reasons to say, that Bengal tigers have been lately bigger in wild. But is that really so... hopefully we know more one day in near future. I just had some discussion with one biologist involving to tiger conservation and message was, that things and changes in conservation happen slowly. That is one reason why that 2 subspecies suggestion from Cat Specialist Group haven´t had any immediate effects. 

It can have in future if tiger situation changes even to more desperate than it is now, maybe it is now almost there. Anyway what comes to "official statements", changes are slow. I assume, that more information and follow ups are needed to "dethrone" Siberian tiger as biggest of the big. Especially when captive tigers seem to keep up that reputation. Reply