Zoos, Circuses, Safaris: A Gallery of Captivity

[Amnon242]

I have seen males Johann, Kavi and females Banya and Raja (Raja is not in Prague any more). I have not seen these tigers together. Kavi, Banya and Raja are quite tall (relatively) and slim. Elegant. The elegance of their bodies reminds me sri lankan leopards. Their colour is similar to bengal tigers, I woud say. Johan is completely different, he is shorter and bulkier. His colour is reddish. He looks like sumatran tiger. I would estimate the males to be around 140 - 150 kg. They are somewhat bigger than sumatran male Falco from Prague.

Behaviour: Kavi is hyperagressive, breeders dont know why. Perhaps something happened to him before he has been translocated to Prague. He had to be excluded from the breeding program. Johan was also quite problemaic, but not as much as Kavi, so finally he calmed down.

Couple of years ago I visited the backstage of the pavilion of felids and talked to breeders. We talked about the differencies between tigers and lions. They told me that tigers are more active and agressive. I thought that sumatrans are the most agressive tigers, but they told me that their sumatrans are quite friendly - malayans and amurs are much more agressive. Lions are definitely more social and have much closer relationship with breeders.

They told me that they havent noticed any differencis in intelligence between felids. On the other hand the main breeder in one interview said that tigers are the strongest personalities.  

I remember how we talked about the size of amur tigers and lions. According to them, amur males are over 200kg easily...they said that typical amur is 220, 230 kg. When it comes to lions they said 150, 170 kg even more...but they said it in the sense that lions are also huge felids. Reply