Tiger Predation

[Apex Titan]

(06-05-2022, 04:30 PM)GreenGrolar Wrote: Rare footage of Royal Bengal tiger killing an Indian Bison Gaur.

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The Royal Bengal tiger can be seen grabbing the bison by its neck in Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh. (Screengrab/Pankaj Khelkar)

A guide from the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh recorded a rare video of a Royal Bengal Tiger going for the kill.

The video is from the Kisli zone in the national park and was recorded on Monday at 12 pm in the afternoon.
The video shows the tiger pouncing on the injured Indian Bison Gaur while another massively huge bison tries to save it from the tiger’s clutches. However, the other bison ends up hurting the injured one from its herd in the process.

Tiger T-67 can be seen in the video grabbing the injured bison by its neck.

The Indian Bisons are immensely huge and strong animals. It is very difficult to take down a fully grown gaur. Hence, predators usually go for either sick or injured animals or young calves.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/footage-royal-bengal-tiger-indian-bison-gaur-watch-1927841-2022-03-21

This doesn't mean tiger's can't go after the biggest gaur which they are capable of. 

You see this statement: "Hence, predators usually go for either sick or injured animals or young calves."  This is a baseless assumption that isn't backed up by any data or scientific studies on tiger predatory behaviour.

Thats the problem with articles like that, some authors will report misinformation and make statements that are clearly wrong. Scientific studies on tiger predation on gaur show the exact opposite. Tigers frequently hunt and kill adult bull gaur and most bull gaurs killed by tigers are healthy animals in good condition. In fact, according to studies, even the smaller Indo-chinese tigers from Thailand routinely kill large adult gaur and banteng, including the bulls.

The small Javan tigers weighing only 120-140 kg routinely preyed on adult banteng, and killed bulls weighing up to 825 kg.

Karanth and Sunquists studies confirmed that tigers even kill the largest bull gaurs weighing at least 1000 kg. They found several of these huge bulls killed by tigers. Other renowned tiger biologists and ecologists like Dr Seidenstecker and Charles McDougal also reported that tigers hunt and kill the largest bull gaurs weighing over a tonne. Their studies (like all tiger predation studies) showed that tigers always prefer the largest prey animals. According to Seidenstecker and McDougal's study, they also found that Bengal tigers were also going out of their way to prey on the largest wild boars weighing up to 500 lbs!

Despite a full-grown adult gaurs immense size, tigers usually have no problems in taking them down.

Some predators like wolves for example, when hunting adult bison, will usually target the old, sick or weakened animals. But this is not the case with tigers hunting prey. Tigers generally target healthy animals even of large, dangerous prey like adult gaur, bears and wild boar.

I can post the data, studies and sources if you want?  I have plenty of good information on this.

Quote:May I know what is the biggest animal a tiger is capable of killing? Thanks in advance. The tiger killing an adult gaur is impressive considering that bovine is such a large animal.

The biggest animals that have been confirmed to have been killed by a tiger, are adult elephants and adult rhino. Although these cases are not common, it has and does happen. The largest common prey item regularly killed by tigers are adult bull gaurs and wild water buffalo bulls. Huge bulls weighing over a tonne have been killed by tigers.

Adult rhinos are on the tigers menu:

"Tiger attacks on rhinos are not unheard of. Bengal tigers are known to prey on rhino calves and in some cases even adult rhinos make an appearance on the menu. Indian rhinos are listed as 'Vulnerable' on the IUCN Red List, while tigers are classified as 'Endangered'."

https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-w...er-attack/

Quote:Minute 8:38,  Dale Miquelle stating that tigers in India and Russia tend to prefer prey that are about the same size as themselves, medium deer and wild boar being the most common prey. Female Ussuri brown bears can be the same weight as a male Siberian tiger so it is still impressive and some tigers like Dale prefer female brown bears.

Also note, Dima (Dale) was described to be a "huge tiger" or large male tiger by the biologists. His picture clearly showed that he was a large tiger. The large female brown bear that was easily killed by him, was described to be "nearly his own size" and in the Siberian Tiger Project news report: "each weighing nearly as much as he does." Goodrich also described the killed brown bear sow as a "valuable prize" for a hunter. So Dima hunted and killed huge female brown bears. 

He also killed a large male black bear which fed him for 5 days.

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Here's some information on the Amur tigers predatory behaviour and habits. Amur tigers prefer ungulates whose size equal or exceed its own. But in summer and autumn, when bears are available for tigers to hunt, both the Himalayan black bear and brown bear make up a significant portion of the tigers diet:

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https://neaspec.org/sites/default/files/...%9d%b4.pdf Reply