Captive Lion and Tiger weights

[Shadow]

(01-06-2020, 09:12 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(01-06-2020, 06:28 PM)Shadow Wrote: I saw at some point texts concerning tiger Gamin who (passed away already) lived in Marwell Wildlife zoo. He was said to have been at some point approximately 600 lbs or 273 kg. As usually, when seeing such weights, I wrote to the zoo and asked about him.

Their answer was:

"our carnivores’ team have advised me the following:

We don’t have any carnivore staff that worked with Gamin, so we can only go by our limited records. We had 2 weights for him, 2011 – 200kg and 2012 – 217kg. In the wild Amur tigers average between 150-200kg so this would have been around the expected weight.

If 273kg is correct he was probably considerably overweight. Our current male, Bagai, is 158kg and in the prime of his life. He is in very good condition and looks what like what you would expect of an Amur tiger."



I asked also about tiger Kubwa, who has been said to have been 950 lbs. Reply was, that he has been that heavy. But owner said also, that overweight tiger. I have seen him on video and he looks like similar kind of tiger as Jaipur was. 

I attach here screenshot from Marwell Wildlife.

Ps. @Hello , I just noticed that you had Gamin in the latest posting  I didn´t notice that until now, what a coincidence, I saw Gamin mentioned in a different site.

Interestingly, even then those weights were from 2011 and 2012, when this tiger was somewhat old. The figure of 273 kg came from the poster Craig Kennion aka "Eagleraptor" which worked with those animals, and the weight was taken before or at 2008 and the pictures that he provided shows a very large specimen.

I don't think that c.270 kg is out of question of a captive tiger, sadly that they do not have more information of the weights of they specimens.

I think too, that 270 kg is possible. But after I started to check many old claims, I´ve got the feeling that in many cases they come from maybe one source and no double checking. That tends to leave room for errors in many cases. I guess, that a few years ago discussions were often so heated up, that when something "good" was found, people didn´t even want to check too much or didn´t quite know how or didn´t dare to do that. 

I can admit, that I don´t give too much value for many old postings in different places. It´s obvious that a few years ago heated debates between people who liked tigers and lions caused also a lot of misinformation spreading, many times proof has been vague or poorly checked. That´s why I nowadays always track down lions and tigers, which are claimed to have been or be exceptionally big, for me that is from 250 kg and upwards. 

What comes to private owners, I mostly ignore them. They all seem to have 700-900 lbs tigers and lions (and always if true, obese) :) Same time from real zoos finding even a 600 lbs big cat, which someone would really confirm feels very difficult. I have been asking about Yeltsin now from the zoos it lived, he died last spring. I´ve seen an article mentioning, that he was 270 kg. Interesting part is, that at that time he was being transferred from Swiss zoo to Germany and he was 2,5 years old.

It will be very interesting if/when getting replies, that was that 270 kg maybe a typo or what. If true, he should have been later 300 kg. But I haven´t seen that weight so far mentioned anywhere else than in that one article, so it could have been a typo too. On the other hand he was looking big and fit in photos. Very interesting tiger, I think. Reply