Tiger Directory

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In the case of Kaziranga, it is important to interpret this information correctly. For example, they say that these three males were "adults" just based in they visual interpretation, but this is incorrect. For example, Sunquist (1981) and Sunquist & Sunquist (1988) explained this cases with the specimen M104 from Chitwan. This was a young male of only 159 kg, however in body dimensions he was already of 289 cm in total length. So, at first sight, he looks like a full grow male tiger, and if a naturalist would see the Sauraha male (his father) with him, would interpret that male tigers tolerate other males in they territory, which is highly incorrect.

Fiona Sunquist concluded in her book "Tiger Moon" (which I have buy now [img]images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]) that those sights of "adult" tigers in large groups are just misinterpretations of family groups of young adults before they separate. In this case, what happen in Kaziranga was probably just the female tiger with her three cubs, or four brothers for a litter, or even the dominant male with her "wife" and two young. As we can see, there are several forms to interpret this case, and this is the problem with the qualitative information, there is no verification and the author don't know the origin, age and relation of those tigers. In fact, in one of the close ups we can see the pink nose in one of those males, and his young looking face, it is certain that it is a cub, more correctly, a young adult before disperse.

Just one thing is sure, male tigers DON'T tolerate other male tigers, they only tolerate they own sons, and normally only up to they maturity, although in Ranthambore, it seems that male tigers share part of they territory for they sons, but this most be studied trough several observations in order to get quantitative and statistical data, just like in the case of Chitwan.

Kaziranga MOST be studied like Chitwan, this is a heaven of life, an incredible area with the largest tigers and its largest preys. Pictures and scats studies are not enough, we need to radiocollar some tigers, monitor them and then, the real information will arise and I bet it will be awesome! [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img] Reply