The Terai Tiger

[Rishi]

(07-02-2019, 04:25 PM)Pckts Wrote: But that being said, the one person who's seen both Gulrighat and Umarpani wouldn't say which is larger but did say that Dudhwa Tigers should be competing with the largest Tigers in C. India, Kanha Cats.

Watch videos of Wagdoh and these boys and I think you'll notice a difference fairly fast when it comes to robustness and frame size looks comparable to me.

Anyway a comparison between those two-three individuals was not my point... What i'm saying is when you see a set of camera-trap photos, then there's no noticeable difference in size between any of the populations, if there is any. The stature varies a bit, but a random tiger from terai or northeast, could very easily pass of as a random tigers from elsewhere. Nor does a big tiger from the north, atleast look, any bigger than a big central India's one.
I don't know why everyone finds them to be so big, but most of them like Gulrighat or Charger, look nothing special compared to other dominant males.

Then there's the matter robustness & size. I found out how big an issue this could be some time ago...

See, the Kathmandu Central Zoo in Nepal has a massive looking male. His photos have been shared here before with just the captions. (Know this one, @Jimmy?)

*This image is copyright of its original author

Impressed by his robustness, i did some digging & multiple eye-witnesses told me that this one was no larger than a german shephard dog. He was even shorter than his mates.
That & my experience with captive Sundarban tigers have made me very wary about assuming size based of photos, videos, or even naked sight. Half the people who've seen both Sundarban & Terai tigers in wild would swear they noticed no size difference. 

The Kazi & Dudhwa-Pilibhit "giant"s could all be below 1m high & we could all be under complete misconception. Reply